The next Senedd election is due to be held by 7 May 2026[1] to elect 96 members to the Senedd (Welsh Parliament; Welsh: Senedd Cymru). It will be the seventh devolvedgeneral election since the Senedd (formerly the National Assembly for Wales) was established in 1999. If held in 2026 it will also be the first election following current reforms to the voting system, which would increase the size of the Senedd from 60 members to 96, adopting a party-list voting system, reducing the number of constituencies to sixteen, and shortening its term from five years to four.[2][3]
Polls have suggested a neck and neck battle between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK.[8] The 2026 vote is considered to be seismic for Welsh politics[9] and is being touted as the "most consequential Senedd election since 1999".[10]
In all prior elections since its establishment as the Welsh Assembly in 1999, the Senedd has been elected through the additional member system, 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 system would, however, be ready to be used only for elections held after 6 April 2026, to allow time for the new constituencies to be drawn up.[13] The next election is due to be held on 7 May 2026.[14]
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.[15]
Constituencies
Map of the 16 constituencies to be used for the election
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.[19] A day later, Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth similarly ruled out working with Reform, describing the two parties' worldviews as "fundamentally different."[20]
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.[21]
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.
↑ 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.[22]
↑ 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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