This year Wales will see elections to all seats of all twenty-one Local Authorities. Wales has historically been seen as a Labour stronghold with the party topping the poll in every Wales-wide election since 1918 until 2009 when the Conservatives beat them to second place in the European Parliament Election of that year.
Despite the result in 2009 and a second blip in the 2019 European Parliament election, where The Brexit Party came first, Labour has returned to relative dominance in Wales in Local, Senedd and General selections.
Whilst Labour has recovered its position at the top of the table in recent years, the presence of the Welsh-nationalist Plaid Cymru and range of independents on the Welsh political scene means this doesn’t necessarily translate into huge numbers of seats and control of Council at the local level, particularly not in the north.
This year, Labour will be looking to repeat their success in the Senedd elections and make gains in Councils across the country at the expense of Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives. The Tories meanwhile, will be looking for an indication of whether their Welsh “Red Wall” seats, such as Wrexham and Ynys Mon and Delyn, may be under threat from a resurgent Labour at the next General Election.