General election forecast
Congleton
Predicted winner: Reform UK with 26.9% of the vote, a 0.5pp margin over Labour.
Predicted vote share
How the model expects this constituency to vote
Coloured number is the swing from the 2024 general election result.
Sitting MP
Sarah Russell
- Party: Labour Party
- Tenure: 2.1 years (since 2024-07-04)
- Status: standing again
See also: TheyWorkForYou
2024 general election result
What happened on 4 July 2024
| Candidate | Party | Votes | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sarah Russell | Labour Party | 18,875 | 37.7% |
| Fiona Bruce | Conservative and Unionist Party | 15,488 | 30.9% |
| Martin York | Reform UK | 8,245 | 16.4% |
| Paul Michael Duffy | Lib Dem | 2,785 | 5.6% |
| Rob Moreton | Independent | 2,181 | 4.4% |
| Rich McCarthy | Green Party | 2,007 | 4.0% |
| Kay Wesley | Women's Equality Party | 544 | 1.1% |
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 Congleton, and what actually happened.
Predicted
Actual on 4 July 2024
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
- GE2024 Baseline. Actual GE2024 result in Congleton
- National Swing (Strong Transition Model). Multiplicative bounded swing, losers shed in proportion to local share, gainers absorb pro-rata national gain. Replaces additive UNS.
- BES MRP Prior. Baseline blended with BES Wave 1-30 north_west prior at weight 5%
- English-identity floor. English 36.2% → Reform +2.0pp
- Age-structure adjustment. 65+ 24.4% → Reform +0.20pp, Con +0.08pp (BES-dampened)
- Normalise. Shares scaled to 100%