General election forecast
Darlington
Predicted winner: Labour with 27.7% of the vote, a 0.0pp margin over Conservative.
Predicted vote share
How the model expects this constituency to vote
Coloured number is the swing from the 2024 general election result.
Sitting MP
Lola McEvoy
- 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lola McEvoy | Labour Party | 16,621 | 39.2% |
| Peter Gibson | Conservative and Unionist Party | 14,323 | 33.8% |
| Michael Alan Walker | Reform UK | 6,852 | 16.2% |
| Matthew Snedker | Green Party | 2,847 | 6.7% |
| Simon Thorley | Lib Dem | 1,735 | 4.1% |
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 Darlington, 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 Darlington
- 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_east prior at weight 5%
- English-identity floor. English 34.6% → Reform +2.0pp
- Normalise. Shares scaled to 100%