Labour’s Bev Craig on course to win by a clear margin

Key takeaways

  • Labour candidate Bev Craig is set to beat Reform UK’s Sian Astley by 62% to 38% in the second round of the Greater Manchester mayoral by-election
  • Craig also leads on first preference votes, taking 38% to Astley’s 24%, with the Greens’ Geraldine Coggins in third on 17%
  • By 44% to 31%, adults in Greater Manchester tend to think Burnham was right to step down as mayor and return to Westminster
  • 66% of Greater Mancunians believe Burnham did a good job as mayor, including 55% of the region’s 2024 Conservative voters

It’s now less than two weeks until the voters of Greater Manchester head to the polls to elect Andy Burnham’s replacement as mayor of the strategic authority, following his successful return to Westminster.

With Burnham now elected Labour leader and set to be appointed prime minister, this mayoral by-election will represent the first electoral test of his premiership, as well as deciding the direction of one of the UK’s principal city regions. New YouGov polling of 2,200 people in Greater Manchester, utilising our pioneering Looped Stratified Simulation (LSS) election model that correctly predicted the Danish election earlier this year, reveals the state of this landmark race as the campaign enters its final stages.

Voting system

This contest also represents the return of the ‘supplementary vote’ system for mayoral elections, which had been previously abolished by the Conservative government in 2022. Under this system, voters are able to show a first and second choice. If no candidate wins more the 50% of first choice votes, all candidates other than the top two are eliminated, with their votes then reallocated to their second choice. After this, the remaining candidate with the highest overall total of first and second choice votes wins.

Greater Manchester mayoral by-election voting intention

With two weeks to go, Labour’s Bev Craig is on course to succeed Burnham as mayor of Greater Manchester.

Although Craig is set to fall short of the 50% of the vote needed to be elected after the first count, she holds a 38% share of first preference votes in our model’s central estimates, placing the leader of Manchester city council 14 points ahead of any other candidate.

Joining Craig in the second round is likely to be her fellow Manchester councillor Sian Astley of Reform UK, who takes 24% of first votes in our poll, knocking out the Greens’ Geraldine Coggins, who is in a clear third in our figures on 17% of the vote.

Also set to eliminated after the first round are the Conservatives’ Phil Eckersley on 11% of the first choice votes, Restore Britain’s Marlon West on 7%, Richard Kilpatrick of the Lib Dems on 3%, and independent Marcus Farmer on less than 1%.

Once the second preferences of these candidates’ supporters are accounted for, our model projects that Bev Craig is on course to win on the second count by a substantial margin of 62% to 38%.

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How do Greater Mancunians feel about Andy Burnham’s mayoralty?

For many residents of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham is going to be a tough act to follow. A full 66% of adults in the region believe that he did a good job as mayor, relative to just 21% feeling he did poorly in the role.

Plaudits for his mayoralty are not just limited to Labour supporters, with the 84% of 2024 Labour voters who feel he did a good job as mayor joined by 85% of Green voters, 72% of Lib Dems and even 55% of those who voted Conservative at the last election.

Most Reform UK voters disagree (59%), though with 36% still believing that Burnham was a good mayor.

Burnham is particularly seen as having been successful when it comes to transport, with three quarters of Greater Mancunians (75%) thinking he did a good job on the issue. Nearly half of residents of the county-come-city region (46%) also believe he did a good job on economic growth, relative to 26% feeling he did a bad job.

Greater Mancunians are more divided when it comes to Burnham’s record on policing (36% vs 30%), while tending to believe Burnham performed poorly on the issue of housing by a margin of 39% to 31%.

While Burnham had previously promised to serve a full third term as mayor, adults in Greater Manchester tend to back his decision to return to national politics ahead of schedule, with 44% believing he was right to step down and run in the by-election, relative to 31% who feel he should have remained mayor until 2028.

Full results here and here

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