UK Elections Contest data. Forecasts. Backtests.
Location map of Bolton South and Walkden on the UK map

General election forecast

Bolton South and Walkden

Predicted winner: Reform UK with 30.0% of the vote, a 0.5pp margin over Labour.

england · north west

Predicted vote share

How the model expects this constituency to vote

Reform UK
30.0% +7.4pp
Labour
29.5% +29.5pp
Workers Party
12.6% -0.1pp
Green Party
11.9% +4.2pp
Conservative
9.4% +9.4pp
Lib Dem
4.6% +0.9pp
Independent
1.2% +0.0pp
SNP
0.7% +0.7pp
Plaid Cymru
0.3% +0.3pp
Other
0.0% 0.0pp

Coloured number is the swing from the 2024 general election result.

Sitting MP

Yasmin Qureshi

See also: TheyWorkForYou

2024 general election result

What happened on 4 July 2024

CandidatePartyVotesShare
Yasmin Qureshi Labour Party 15,093 40.9%
Julie Pattison Reform UK 8,350 22.6%
Jack Khan Workers Party 4,673 12.7%
Mohammed Afzal Conservative and Unionist Party 4,170 11.3%
Phillip Kochitty Green Party 2,827 7.7%
Gemma-Jane Bowker Lib Dem 1,384 3.7%
Don Prof Reis Abraham Halliwell Prf Independent 433 1.2%

Source: Returning officer declaration

How accurate is the model here?

Our 2024 backtest for this constituency

We replayed the same model architecture against the 4 July 2024 general election using only the data a forecaster running the model in May 2024 would have known. Here's what it would have predicted for Bolton South and Walkden, and what actually happened.

✓ Winner called correctly , predicted Labour, actual Labour. Major-party MAE: 6.75pp, the average gap between our predicted vote share and the actual share, per major party.

Predicted

Labour
61.7%
Reform UK
15.0%
Workers Party
0.5%
Conservative
13.7%
Green Party
5.5%
Lib Dem
3.0%
Independent
0.0%

Actual on 4 July 2024

Labour
40.9% +20.8pp
Reform UK
22.6% -7.6pp
Workers Party
12.7% -12.1pp
Conservative
11.3% +2.4pp
Green Party
7.7% -2.2pp
Lib Dem
3.8% -0.7pp
Independent
1.2% -1.2pp

Positive gap = we predicted that party would win more share than they did. See the full GE backtest across all 650 seats for the model's national accuracy.

How this forecast was built
  1. GE2024 Baseline. Actual GE2024 result in Bolton South and Walkden
  2. National Swing (Strong Transition Model). Multiplicative bounded swing, losers shed in proportion to local share, gainers absorb pro-rata national gain. Replaces additive UNS.
  3. BES MRP Prior. Baseline blended with BES Wave 1-30 north_west prior at weight 5%
  4. Tactical Voting. Green Party → Labour: 2.0pp transfer (close 3-way)
  5. English-identity floor. English 25.8% → Reform +1.0pp
  6. Reform demographic ceiling. Muslim 29.0% → cap Reform at 30%; redistributed 4.3pp
  7. Normalise. Shares scaled to 100%

Read the full general election methodology →