Roger Awan-Scully

Newport West’s by-election suggests Labour could struggle in a snap election

The result from the Newport West by-election came in late last night and as was generally expected Labour held the seat, albeit with a reduced majority. As had also been expected, turnout was significantly down on the general election. Here is the full result:

Candidate (Party) Votes per cent (change on 2017)
Ruth Jones (Labour) 9,308 39.6 (-12.7)
Matthew Evans (Conservative) 7,357 31.3 (-8.0)
Neil Hamilton (UKIP) 2,023 8.6 (+6.1)
Jonathan Clark (Plaid Cymru) 1,185 5.0 (+2.5)
Ryan Jones (Lib-Dems) 1,088 4.6 (+2.4)
Amelia Womack (Greens) 924 3.9 (+2.9)
June Davies (Renew) 879 3.7 (+3.7)
Richard Suchorzewski (Abolish the Assembly) 205 0.9 (+0.9)
Ian McLean (Social Democrat) 202 0.9 (+0.9)
Phillip Taylor (Democrats and Veterans) 185 0.8 (+0.8)
Hugh Nicklin (For Britain) 159 0.7 (+0.7)

Turnout: 37.1 per cent

Majority: 1,951

Swing: 2.4 per cent Labour to Conservative

A first notable thing about the result is the turnout figure. At 37.1 per cent, the official turnout was far from an all-time low for UK parliamentary by-elections. But it was also clearly a little ‘below trend’. Given the 67.5 per cent Newport West turnout in 2017, we should have been looking at a turnout figure in the mid-40s.

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