Local council · Isle of Wight

Shanklin South

1 seat contested on Thursday 7 May 2026. 5 candidates from 5 parties.

Confidence in the forecast: Medium · Official Statement of Persons Nominated (PDF)

Ward locator for Shanklin South; neighbouring wards shaded by Reform UK vote-share difference vs this ward.

Neighbours shaded by Reform UK share vs this ward, red = higher, blue = lower.

Predicted vote share

What the model expects

Conservative
47.2%
Reform UK
34.8%
Labour
15.8%
Green Party
1.9%
Independent
0.3%

Predictions are point estimates: the model's best guess, not a guarantee. The "How this prediction was made" section below lists every step that shaped this forecast.

How accurate was the model here?

Our 7 May 2026 forecast for Shanklin South

✗ Winner missed , predicted Conservative, actual Reform UK. Major-party MAE: 9.78pp across the parties below.
PartyPredictedActualGap
Reform UK 35.5% 37.2% -1.7pp
Labour 14.0% 6.1% +7.9pp
Conservative 48.0% 29.6% +18.4pp

Positive gap = we predicted that party would win more share than they did. See the full Isle of Wight accuracy summary or the national audit.

Recent contests

What happened last time

DateTypeWinnerTop shareSource
2021-05-06 Cycle Conservative and Unionist Party 61.1% declaration
2017-05-04 Cycle Conservative and Unionist Party 39.0% declaration

Candidates 2026

Parties on the ballot

View the official Statement of Persons Nominated (PDF)

How this area looks demographically

Figures are for Isle of Wight as a whole. The same local-authority figures are used for every ward in the council, finer ward-level demographics will land in a future release.

How this prediction was made
  1. Baseline . Most recent borough result (2021-05-06)
  2. BES MRP Prior . Baseline blended with BES Wave 1-30 south_east prior (weight 15%, n=5565 regional respondents)
  3. National Swing (STM) . Strong Transition Model: multiplicative bounded swing, dampened by 0.1 for local
  4. Demographics . 2 demographic factor(s) applied
  5. Incumbency . No current holder data available
  6. New Party Entry . Reform UK estimated at 5.9% from GE/LCC proxy + swing
  7. Normalise . All shares scaled to sum to 100%
  8. Restrict to ballot . Removed 5 party/parties not standing in 2026 (Our Island 14.6pp, Liberal Democrats 3.0pp, SNP 0.1pp, Other 0.0pp, Plaid Cymru 0.0pp). Their share redistributed pro-rata.
  9. 2025 county-cycle anchor . No 2025 reference available for this council's parent area. Stage 1 uses national polling only.
  10. Reform realignment uplift (no-anchor councils) . No 2025 parent-county anchor available; demographic-borrow rule applied. Asian 1.1% → base target 36.0% × regional multiplier 0.85 = 30.6%. Reform 8.4% → 30.6% (lift +22.2pp). Other parties scaled pro-rata. Calibration source: Burnley 2026 ward-level Asian%↔Reform% relationship (the 2-tier district that did receive the LCC 2025 anchor).
  11. National-share calibration . Aggregate-predicted vs national-polled mismatch corrected at strength 0.65. Multipliers — Labour ×0.82, Conservative ×1.00, Reform UK ×1.15, Liberal Democrats ×0.96, Green Party ×1.12, SNP ×1.00, Plaid Cymru ×1.00.

Read the full local-elections methodology →

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