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2026 Senedd election
Upcoming general election to be held in Wales From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The 2026 Senedd election is due to be held on 7 May 2026[2][3] to elect 96 members to the Senedd (Welsh Parliament; Welsh: Senedd Cymru). It will be the seventh devolved general election since the Senedd (formerly the National Assembly for Wales) was established in 1999. It will also be the first election following current reforms to the voting system, which increases the size of the Senedd from 60 members to 96, adopts a party-list voting system, reduces the number of constituencies to sixteen, and shortens its term from five years to four.[4][5]
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Background
In the 2021 Senedd election, Welsh Labour won another government with just one seat short of their first-ever majority.[6] At the 2022 Welsh local elections, the Welsh Conservatives suffered losses to Plaid Cymru and Labour.[7] In the 2024 United Kingdom general election in Wales, Labour won the most seats and the Conservatives were wiped out losing all their Welsh seats.[8]
In September 2025, following the Angela Rayner tax scandal that led to her resignation and a Labour Party deputy leadership election, the subsequent cabinet reshuffle, and the dismissal of Peter Mandelson as British ambassador to the United States over the latter's association with Jeffrey Epstein, criticisms of Starmer's leadership became more prominent within the Labour party. MPs reportedly viewed underperformance in the 2026 United Kingdom local elections and next Senedd election as a likely catalyst for a leadership challenge.[9]
Polls have suggested a neck and neck battle between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK.[10] The 2026 vote is considered to be seismic for Welsh politics[11] and is being touted as the "most consequential Senedd election since 1999".[12]
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Electoral system
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The 2026 Senedd election will use a new electoral system following the approval of the Senedd Reform Act. The Senedd will have 96 members, all elected through closed party list proportional representation (using the D'Hondt method) in 16 six-member constituencies. The 16 constituencies were created by pairing up the 32 Westminster constituencies.[13][14]
Parties can nominate up to 8 candidates on their list in each constituency.[15] In the event that an elected Senedd member resigns during the term, they will be replaced by the member below them on their party's list rather than a by-election being held.
In all prior elections since its establishment as the Welsh Assembly in 1999, the Senedd has been elected through the additional member system, and had 60 members, under which 40 out of 60 seats were elected by the first past the post system from single-member constituencies (the same as those used for Westminster), while the remaining 20 were attributed regionally (in 5 regions of 4 seats) on the basis of a second vote for a closed party list of candidates. The additional member seats in each region were allocated from the lists by the D'Hondt method, with constituency results being taken into account in the allocation.
The new electoral system would be ready to be used only for elections held after 6 April 2026, to allow time for the new constituencies to be drawn up.[16] The next election is due to be held on 7 May 2026.[17]
Another proposed reform bill would have provided for mandatory "zipping" of male and female candidates in the list to ensure that for every party, half of the Members will be women. However, this bill was scrapped in September 2024.[18]
Constituencies
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Incumbent Senedd members
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MSs who have announced their retirement are in italics.
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Candidates
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 | This section needs additional citations for verification. (August 2025) |
NB: MSs in office (i.e. incumbents) before the election who are seeking re-election are bolded.[19]
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Campaign
On 2 February 2025, Welsh Labour leader Eluned Morgan said she would be open to a coalition with Plaid Cymru after the election "if needs must". She ruled out a coalition with Reform UK, as she thought there was a "red line on that one". She rejected the suggestion put to her that Welsh Labour was under threat at the election, explaining that there is "an international shift going on at the moment and we've got several months now to make sure people understand what's at stake here". She also called Reform an "English focused party" with "nothing Welsh about" them.[39] A day later, Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth similarly ruled out working with Reform, describing the two parties' worldviews as "fundamentally different."[40]
In April 2025 Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said his party "would work with any other Senedd party" and that the new voting system means "it's not going to be easy" to win an overall majority.[41]
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Opinion polling
For the election to be held in May 2026, Wales has been divided into 16 multi-member constituencies, each based on a pairing of two adjacent constituences used for the UK Parliament since 2024. Each of these 16 constituencies will elect 6 members of the Senedd using a system of proportional representation.[42][43]
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Retiring members
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The following MSs have announced their intention to not run for re-election:
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Notes
- Rhys ab Owen was later suspended from the party, sitting as an independent. While in October 2025, Lindsay Whittle was elected in the 2025 Caerphilly by-election.
- Labelled using their sole Welsh names, with Caerdydd being the Welsh name for Cardiff
- Rhys ab Owen was elected as a Plaid Cymru MS, but was suspended from the party
- The British Polling Council states that a sample size of at least 1,000 is the "established norm" for any poll in Great Britain. However, there is no "minimum" acceptable sample size.[44]
- Survation asked voters to give their preferences under the current Additional Member System. The figure shown in this table is the proportional (regional) vote, as that is the closest equivalent to the new party list system.
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See also
References
External links
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