General election forecast
South Holland and The Deepings
Predicted winner: Reform UK with 32.3% of the vote, a 0.6pp 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
John Hayes
- Party: Conservative and Unionist 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Hayes | Conservative and Unionist Party | 17,462 | 38.0% |
| Matt Swainson | Reform UK | 10,606 | 23.1% |
| Paul Hilliar | Labour Party | 9,086 | 19.8% |
| Mark Edward Le Sage | Independent | 5,031 | 11.0% |
| Jack Braginton | Lib Dem | 1,945 | 4.2% |
| Rhys Rhobat Baker | Green Party | 1,800 | 3.9% |
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 South Holland and The Deepings, 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 South Holland and The Deepings
- 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 east_midlands prior at weight 5%
- English-identity floor. English 39.6% → Reform +2.0pp
- Age-structure adjustment. 65+ 23.9% → Reform +0.20pp, Con +0.08pp (BES-dampened)
- Independent ceiling. Cap Independent at 8% (flat); redistributed 2.0pp
- Normalise. Shares scaled to 100%