Local council · London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Poplar
1 seat contested on Thursday 7 May 2026. 7 candidates from 7 parties.
Neighbours shaded by Reform UK share vs this ward, red = higher, blue = lower.
Predicted vote share
What the model expects
Predictions are point estimates: the model's best guess, not a guarantee. The "How this prediction was made" section below lists every step that shaped this forecast.
How accurate was the model here?
Our 7 May 2026 forecast for Poplar
| Party | Predicted | Actual | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reform UK | 9.1% | 6.9% | +2.1pp |
| Labour | 21.5% | 17.2% | +4.3pp |
| Conservative | 5.5% | 3.7% | +1.8pp |
Positive gap = we predicted that party would win more share than they did. See the full London Borough of Tower Hamlets accuracy summary or the national audit.
Recent contests
What happened last time
| Date | Type | Winner | Top share | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-05-05 | Cycle | Aspire | 53.1% | declaration |
| 2018-05-03 | Cycle | Labour Party | 36.8% | declaration |
Candidates 2026
Parties on the ballot
- Aspire
- Conservative and Unionist Party
- Green Party
- Labour Party
- Lib Dem
- Reform UK
- Tower Hamlets Independents
How this area looks demographically
Figures are for Tower Hamlets as a whole. The same local-authority figures are used for every ward in the council, finer ward-level demographics will land in a future release.
- White British (projected May 2026): 19.8% (Census 2021: 22.9%)
- Asian heritage (projected May 2026): 45.8% (Census 2021: 44.4%)
- Average area deprivation decile: 3.7 (1 = most deprived, 10 = least)
How this prediction was made
- Baseline . Most recent borough result (2022-05-05)
- BES MRP Prior . Baseline blended with BES Wave 1-30 london prior (weight 15%, n=3660 regional respondents)
- National Swing (STM) . Strong Transition Model: multiplicative bounded swing, dampened by 0.65 for local
- Demographics . 2 demographic factor(s) applied
- Incumbency . No current holder data available
- New Party Entry . Reform UK estimated at 12.8% from GE/LCC proxy + swing
- Normalise . All shares scaled to sum to 100%
- Restrict to ballot . Removed 3 party/parties not standing in 2026 (SNP 0.3pp, Plaid Cymru 0.1pp, Other 0.0pp). Their share redistributed pro-rata.
- 2025 county-cycle anchor . No 2025 reference available for this council's parent area. Stage 1 uses national polling only.
- National-share calibration . Aggregate-predicted vs national-polled mismatch corrected at strength 0.65. Multipliers — Labour ×0.82, Conservative ×1.00, Reform UK ×1.15, Liberal Democrats ×0.96, Green Party ×1.12, SNP ×1.00, Plaid Cymru ×1.00.