General election forecast
Forest of Dean
Predicted winner: Reform UK with 27.4% of the vote, a 0.2pp 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
Matt Bishop
- 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matt Bishop | Labour Party | 16,373 | 34.0% |
| Mark Harper | Conservative and Unionist Party | 16,095 | 33.5% |
| Stanley Goodin | Reform UK | 8,194 | 17.0% |
| Chris McFarling | Green Party | 4,735 | 9.8% |
| James Michael Joyce | Lib Dem | 2,604 | 5.4% |
| Saiham Sikder | Socialist Labour Party | 90 | 0.2% |
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 Forest of Dean, 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 Forest of Dean
- 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 south_west prior at weight 5%
- English-identity floor. English 36.2% → Reform +2.0pp
- Age-structure adjustment. 65+ 25.2% → Reform +0.40pp, Con +0.20pp (BES-dampened)
- Normalise. Shares scaled to 100%