The Elections Centre Constituency Spotlights 2024: Bristol Central

Posted by Dr Hannah Bunting

This new constituency was created as a result of the boundary changes in response to the growing population in the city. It’s previous seat, the now defunct Bristol West, has essentially had its area reduced and been given the new name Bristol Central (a name that hasn’t been used since the 1970s). Labour’s Shadow Culture Secretary Thangam Debbonaire has been its representative since 2015. She has been involved in a number of issue campaigns, such as tackling substance abuse, and is an accomplished musician.

The notional 2019 results show Debbonaire as having a sizeable 32.5% majority. However there are several polls, including the Sky/YouGov MRP, that project it to become the Green Party’s second ever gain, and Electoral Calculus say there’s an 85% probability that the Greens will take it from Labour. This expectation was bolstered by recent local election results in Bristol. Yet a closer look at voting in the seat casts doubt on Labour’s vulnerability.

There are eight wards in the Bristol Central constituency and all 12 of the serving councillors, elected here in 2024, are Greens. It has a younger and more ethnically diverse population than average, partly attributed to high numbers of university students, and Hanretty estimates it had the fourth largest Remain vote at 82%.  But there’s something else unusual about voters in this seat: their increased tendency to ‘split ticket’ vote. That is, put a cross next to one party on their local councillor ballot and another on their parliamentary ballot.

The graph above uses Elections Centre data to visualise local election voting in Bristol Central over 23 years. The Greens are rarely so prominent in these types of line graphs of vote share. Their surge in support began when the Liberal Democrats collapsed during their time in the coalition government. If these results had been replicated in general elections over the same time period, the constituency would have been held by the LibDems from 2001 to 2015, then briefly Green before returning to Liberal Democrat.

However Bristol West, of which all wards in Central were part, has been Labour since 2015, even though they only received 20% of the local councillor vote here in that year. The Greens were 20 points higher, yet came second in the parliamentary vote on 24.9%. That means 1 in 6 voters split their ticket in this constituency that year. The ward of Redland didn’t have a local council election in 2015, but looking at the two years either side suggests it may have been an ever bigger gap if they had.

Labour also won this seat in the 2001 general election where local voting put them more than 15% behind the Liberal Democrats. Therefore even though Labour’s share was almost half that of the Greens in the 2024 local elections, it does not mean they will win the parliamentary vote. The voters here behave differently depending on the type of election.

That said, Carla Denyer, the Green candidate here and their co-leader, could still buck the trend. She came second in 2019 and the seat is top of the Green’s target list, even with them 32.5% behind Labour. If she does win, it’ll be a momentous victory on several fronts. A large majority overturned, a Labour Shadow Cabinet member unseated, and the first time in nine years that Bristol Central has the same party representing them both locally and nationally.

We might know this result sometime around 4am on the 5^th July. It’s certainly one to watch out for.

Do you have a question that can be answered with local elections data? Get in touch at elections@exeter.ac.uk