How Wales voted at the 2026 Senedd election

A breakdown of how Wales voted in the 2026 Senedd election by key demographic and political divides

Key takeaways

• Plaid Cymru’s support was higher among younger voters, those with higher levels of both education and household income, while being highest of all among those who are fluent in Welsh
• Reform UK’s vote was strongest among older Welsh people, those with lower levels of education, and those who are or were employed in routine occupations, as well as being ten points higher among men than women
• Just 45% of Welsh voters who voted in 2021 and 2026 backed the same party in both elections
• Labour retained just 34% of their 2021 vote, with 39% switching to Plaid Cymru, while 55% of 2021 Conservatives defected to Reform UK

Last month’s election to the Senedd was a dramatic conclusion to more than a century of Labour dominance in Welsh politics, with Plaid Cymru emerging victorious and Reform UK also making substantial gains. With such a seismic recolouring of the Welsh politics map, decades-old voting patterns have been erased.

By reanalysing the data behind our pre-election MRP, which successfully forecast the results of last month’s vote, we can breakdown how Wales voted by all the key demographic and political divides to uncover the new shape of Welsh politics.

How Wales voted in 2026, by age

In common with other recent elections in Britain, age proved to be a key dividing line in the 2026 Senedd election with younger voters being more likely to vote for Plaid Cymru and older voters leaning more towards Reform UK.

Among the under 30s, Plaid Cymru took 60% of the vote, roughly four times the level of support that Reform UK managed among the youngest Welsh voters (14%). Rhun ap Iorwerth’s party also leads among those in their 30s and 40s, while Welsh voters in their 50s are divided between the 31% who backed Plaid Cymru and the 34% who favoured Reform UK. The latter led in the older age groups, including by a 15 point margin among those in their 70s.

Support for the Greens was highest among younger Welsh people, with the party taking 15% of the vote among the under 30s, while the likelihood of a voter being a Conservative increases with age, peaking at 18% among the over 70s, where the party are on a roughly similar level of support to Plaid Cymru.

Labour’s vote, however, shows little difference between age groups, with the party on a 12% share among all but the youngest voters.

The median age of a Plaid Cymru voter was 45, compared to 59 for a Reform UK voter, 56 for a Labour voter, 64 for a Welsh Conservative, 42 for a Green voter and 53 for a Liberal Democrat.

How Wales voted in 2026, by gender

By the standards of British elections, last month’s Welsh election exhibited a fairly substantial gender divide. Among men, the result was a dead heat, with both Reform UK and Plaid Cymru on a third of the vote (33-34%). Among women, though, Plaid Cymru enjoyed a 14 point advantage, with 38% of Welsh women backing the party, relative to just 24% opting for Reform UK, a vote share fully ten points lower than among men.

Women were also slightly more likely than men to back the Conservatives (12% vs 9%) and the Greens (8% vs 5%), while Labour won an 11% share among both men and women.

How Wales voted in 2026, by education level

As in many democracies today, Welsh voting patterns are sharply polarised by education levels, with progressive parties tending to find most favour among the university educated, while right-wing populist parties are strongest among those with fewer formal qualifications.

Plaid Cymru won a 43% vote share among those who hold a degree, including a 23 point lead over any other party, but convinced just 26% of voters whose highest qualification is at GCSE level or lower, trailing Reform UK by 19 points. In fact, Reform UK took nearly half of the vote (45%) among this group, roughly triple their level of support with degree-holding voters (17%).

In our data, Labour, the Conservatives and the Greens all recorded higher levels of support among Welsh voters who had pursued higher education.

How Wales voted in 2026, by socio-economic classification and household income

Similar patterns are apparent when looking at the Senedd election according to either socio-economic classification (NS-SEC) or household income.

While Plaid Cymru won nearly twice as many votes as Reform UK among those who are or were in higher managerial and professional occupations (39% vs 22%), it was the latter who ended up ahead among Welsh people whose most recent job was in a routine or manual occupation (by 39% to 29%).

Similarly, while Reform UK won 37% of the vote among those with a household income of under £25,000, they earned just 16% of the vote among those who live in households with an income of more than £70,000. By contrast, Plaid Cymru won 44% of the vote in higher income households, compared to 31% in lower income homes.

In both cases, Conservative support was highest at the upper end of the scale, while Labour’s vote share was relatively even across either socio-economic classifications or level of household income.

How Wales voted in 2026, by housing tenure

By housing tenure, Reform UK and the Conservatives both won their highest levels of support among those who own their home outright, taking 36% and 15% vote shares respectively, making it one of the minority of demographics in Wales where at least half of voters backed the two right-wing parties.

Mortgage holders, by comparison, were most likely to back Plaid Cymru, with 42% voting for the party, relative to 25% choosing Reform UK.

Plaid Cymru won a third of the vote among both social and private renters (34%), though Reform UK’s support was higher among those who rent from a local council or housing association (31%) than among those who rent from a private landlord (24%).

The Greens’ vote was particularly concentrated among those who rent from private landlords, among whom they won a 15% share, relative to 4-6% among those in other housing situations.

How Wales voted in 2026, by EU referendum vote

Although it’s now been nearly a decade since the 2016 EU referendum, the political divides stemming from it are still more than apparent among Welsh voting patterns.

Nearly half of Welsh Remainers (48%) voted Plaid Cymru last month, relative to just 17% of those who backed Leave in 2016. Meanwhile, Reform UK took a small majority of Leave voters (53%), but only gained the support of 10% of Remain voters.

Labour held a greater level of support among Remainers than Leavers (18% vs 7%), as did the Greens (8% vs 2%) and the Lib Dems (6% vs 3%), while the reverse was true of the Conservatives (9% vs 15%).

How Wales voted in 2026, by past vote

The scale of the shift in the Welsh party system since the previous Senedd election can most acutely be seen in the fact that only 45% of Welsh people who voted in both elections backed the same party both times, with this falling to just a third of those who backed the Conservatives (33%) or Labour (34%).

More than half of 2021 Conservatives (55%) voted for Reform UK last month, with the populist party also picking up 13% of those who voted Labour five years ago.

But it was Plaid Cymru who were the biggest beneficiaries of Labour’s collapse, with 39% of those who had helped re-elect Mark Drakeford as first minister in 2021 instead backing Rhun ap Iorwerth’s ultimately successful campaign to become the first non-Labour holder of the position.

The story does not differ hugely when looking at how Welsh voters have moved since the 2024 general election.

A mere 30% of 2024 Labour voters who went to the polls last month remained loyal to the party, less than two years on from their landslide victory, with nearly half (45%) instead backing Plaid Cymru. One in ten (10%) instead moved rightwards to Reform UK, while 7% of 2024 Labour voters went Green this time.

A similar picture is apparent among 2024 Lib Dem voters, with just 35% sticking with the party and 32% defecting to Plaid Cymru.

The Conservatives managed to retain less than half of their 2024 voters (47%), with 40% instead voting for Reform UK. By contrast, Reform UK kept hold of 92% of the voters who backed them just under two years ago, while Plaid Cymru retained 79% of its previous vote.

How Wales voted in 2026, by Welsh-speaking ability

While there was a lot of change at this election, one pre-2026 divide that continues is Plaid Cymru’s support being strongest among Welsh speakers. The party won 69% of voters who can speak Cymraeg fluently, as well as 47% of those who have a lower level of Welsh proficiency.

Among voters in Wales who cannot speak Welsh, Reform UK were instead the most popular party, by a margin of 36% to 25%.

How Wales voted in 2026, by place of birth

Although Reform UK in Wales has sometimes faced accusations of being an ‘English nationalist’ party, catering to the fifth of the Welsh population born on the other side of the Marches, the party won similar levels of support among Welsh voters born in Wales (29%) and Welsh voters born in the rest of the UK (32%).

Plaid Cymru, though, did find a greater level of support among those born within Wales than in the rest of the UK (39% vs 28%), while the opposite was true of the Conservatives (15% vs 9%).

See the full results here

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