With the general election looming in the United Kingdom, political parties have been targeting their efforts in areas where they believe they can win, rather than squandering resources on communities with little promise. There are approximately ten or eleven key battlegrounds out of Wales’ 32 seats. Of course, the outcome of the evening might still hold surprises in other areas too, but these are the contests we will be scrutinizing.
If the Conservative Party has a poorly-performing night, four Welsh Secretary officeholders, including a former incumbent, may be at risk of losing their seats in Wales. Similarly, if the Labour Party has an insufficient evening, they could struggle to recover the terrain lost to the Tories in the last general election. Meanwhile, Plaid Cymru is looking to hold its position, as well as improving, in western and northern Wales.
In 2019, North Wales turned primarily blue, but there is also a hint of green from Plaid. Ynys Môn is a three-way fight between Tory incumbent Virginia Crosbie, who has pushed her Wylfa achievement, Plaid’s local council leader Llinos Medi, and Ieuan Môn Williams, who wants to regain the seat that Labour lost five years ago. This seat is one of Plaid’s significant targets.
Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr is conceivably the Tories’ most reliable Welsh seat, but all bets may be off after their representative Craig Williams was involved in the gambling scandal. Labour has never won this seat.
Clwyd East might become a genuine battleground, with a potentially stable Tory vote and questions over Labour-run Denbighshire council’s bin collections. Labour, on the other hand, intends to reclaim Wrexham and win the new Bangor Aberconwy seat.
Welsh Secretary David TC Davies is among a small number of cabinet ministers battling to save their seats in his Monmouthshire stronghold. Labour’s Catherine Fookes – boosted by a visit from Sir Keir Starmer earlier in the campaign – is striving hard to cause an upset. Meanwhile, ex-Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns may be at danger in the Vale of Glamorgan because he is up against Labour’s Kanishka Narayan. Bridgend has been hinted to return to Labour by polling data. Is this the time for Reform to have its best performance in Wales in seats like Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney, where its forerunner, the Brexit Party, performed well in 2019?
Caerfyrddin is one of the few genuine three-way battles, albeit perhaps a battle too tough for Conservative chief whip Simon Hart, who is also David TC Davies’ predecessor as Welsh secretary. If he loses, it will be one of the evening’s significant Tory losses. Farming and pylons, both the Welsh Labour government’s responsibility, have been big local problems that Plaid has attempted to leverage. Both parties genuinely wish to win this seat.
Brecon, Radnor, and Cwm Tawe also involve a three-way struggle. Conservative Wales Office Minister Fay Jones is defending the position, and both Labour and the Liberal Democrats believe they have a chance. Has the Labour-leaning nature of Cwm Tawe, coupled with the revised constraints, been over-assumed? Or will the inhabitants of the Swansea Valley make a different decision after spending years residing in a safe Labour seat? Watch Mid and South Pembrokeshire, where Stephen Crabb, another former Conservative Welsh Secretary, has waged his campaign without much coverage from the press. The second-largest donor to the first minister possesses the Withyhedge landfill site in the district, a fact that Mr Crabb has utilized multiple times in social media advertisements
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