The Impossible Poll?

James Johnson

With only three months left until the Senedd elections, the time for endless polling has arrived.

Polls are used to assess the political mood of a country. To see which way the wind is blowing.

They are useful for parties, as their results can allow a change of tactics, a redistribution of funds or a re-focus on persuading a different age group for example.

The polling company most often cited in papers and on TV is YouGov, set up 25 years ago by Stephan Shakespeare and Nadhim Zahawi (yes, that Nadim Zahawi), but in recent months, a couple of interesting polls have appeared, and their results have been rapidly and widely questioned online.

All Senedd voting intention polls published for the last two months have projected Plaid several points ahead, some up to 14 points ahead, of Reform UK. But the latest poll released by international polling company More In Common suggests a 7 point lead for Reform, just two weeks after YouGov’s latest poll suggested a lead double that for Plaid Cymru.

Are these figures reliable? And what sort of transparency should we expect from a polling website?

We should, at the very least, expect to see how many people were polled, and a full breakdown of the answers given, preferably with further details of those polled, such as age, political leaning or party affiliation, and other relevant details.

The new poll’s page on More In Common’s website provides no information beyond the timeframe of fieldwork (11 days claimed between the end of January and start of February). Compare this to YouGov’s website, which provides a PDF breakdown of the percentage of every response, the timeframe of fieldwork, as well as the age, politics, and full number of people polled over that time.

Transparency in political polling has become a hot topic, particularly since it emerged in late 2025 that a poll placing Reform UK ahead in UK voting intention was conducted by Merlin, a company with no apparent history, based coincidentally at the recent former address of Reform’s HQ in London. Oops.

So can we trust the More In Common poll?

It is almost unbelievable that Reform could go from trailing Plaid by 14 points, to being ahead by seven, as the poll claims, in such a short time, particularly with Plaid gaining council seats from Reform in that time, and with Reform’s all-but-unknown new Wales leader coming under fire for his absence from the nation for 27 years.

This poll’s results would require a tectonic shift in political opinion in Wales to happen over two weeks for… apparently no reason whatsoever.

It would need a significant proportion of the population to suddenly, and for no apparent reason, stop supporting a progressive, left-wing socialist party, and support a far-right party with what many might call authoritarian leanings and a focus on immigration, a policy area the Senedd cannot control.

We currently do not have information on the More In Common poll’s page about where the poll was conducted (there are rumours it was specifically conducted only in Cardiff), about the sample size (again, rumours claim it was fewer than the industry standard of 1000 people), or the demographic of those polled.

According to YouGov’s Welsh political snapshot (26 January 2026), 59% of Welsh voters prioritise healthcare as a political concern: Plaid’s main policy area, with only 26% prioritising immigration: Reform’s flagship issue.

The YouGov poll again provides the sample size and the full percentage results of this poll as a PDF on their website. Why does More In Common not provide this information? We can only speculate.

Whether or not the poll is reliable, it maintains what has already been commented upon in other outlets for months: currently, even if they co-operate with the Conservatives, Reform cannot form the next Welsh Government, with the likely result being a Plaid-led coalition with Labour and the Greens.