General election forecast
Swansea West
Predicted winner: Reform UK with 28.7% 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
Torsten Bell
- Party: Labour Party
- Tenure: 1.9 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Torsten Bell | Labour Party | 14,761 | 41.4% |
| Patrick Benham-Crosswell | Reform UK | 6,246 | 17.5% |
| Mike O'Carroll | Lib Dem | 4,367 | 12.2% |
| Gwyn Williams | Plaid Cymru - The Party of Wales | 4,105 | 11.5% |
| Tara-Jane Sutcliffe | Conservative and Unionist Party | 3,536 | 9.9% |
| Peter Jones | Green Party | 2,305 | 6.5% |
| Gareth Bromhall | Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition | 337 | 0.9% |
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 Swansea West, 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 Swansea West
- 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 wales prior at weight 5%
- Tactical Voting. Liberal Democrats → Labour: 1.9pp transfer (close 3-way)
- Normalise. Shares scaled to 100%