When Tyler Chambers tells me that his birth year is 2005 – I tell him, it makes me feel old. He replies that he gets that a lot. In fact, when he decided to stand for election to the Senedd, he expected that would be the main thing people would say when he knocked on their doors.
Yet, he rattles off a range of jobs and experience far beyond his years. He’s been a paper (and milk) delivery boy and worked in the local chippy. When his dad, a builder, was made redundant, the pair set up a garden and property business.
He has worked for a UK Government minister, and his local Senedd member (until he defected to Reform UK) as well as a spell in public affairs. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here
If he isn’t campaigning, he’s studying, and if not that, he’s on his dad’s smallholding, in the shed helping with his Dorset sheep.
But now, some polls are projecting Tyler Chambers’ next role could see him elected to the Senedd, likely as its youngest member, and potentially one of a few Conservatives who could be left standing, if the polls are correct.
Various pollsters have, this election campaign, suggested the party could drop to a single seat – or gather a handful of seats, depending on the decisions of the Welsh electorate.
Born in Rhayader, his parents split up when he was young, and he grew up living with his mum on the Maes y Brenin council estate. She works as a hairdresser in Rhayader. It’s safe to say, he admits, lots of the people he has speaking to on the campaign know about him through her.
He went to Rhayader Primary School, and then Llandrindod Wells High School, but when the A-levels he wanted weren’t available in Powys, he decided to go to Hereford Sixth Form College to study law, business and politics.
Before even getting the 6.30am bus, he would have already have had to get the 15 minutes by car to the bus stop, arriving in Hereford around 8.30am, returning home on the 6pm service from Hereford – after a day at college.
“That was a bit challenging,” he concedes, “I know loads of students face a similar struggle still.,” he says, saying transport for those in rural communities will be something he will pursue “if I get in”.
As well as campaigning, he is a second year student in Cardiff University, studying sociology and social policy. “But as you can imagine, my top priority now is is Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd, and hopefully representing Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd in the Senedd,” he clarifies.
He had got involved in local activism as teen, knocking doors for people sign a petition to stop the closure of his local youth centre, but his journey into politics came despite the topic being “banned in nearly every room” at home. “Politics came because there was a bit of an issue that I ran into and I thought, ‘Do you know what? Politics can resolve that’.
“It was domestic abuse and seeing the level of support victims don’t necessarily have in difficult circumstances.
“That was my incentive and I thought, ‘you know what, I want to go into it, I want to change the system’.”
He explains that it was learning about “the evidence-led programme which means that minors with evidence can go and present that evidence but they will need permission of a parent” when he was called upon to give evidence.
“I was in a fortunate case where it wasn’t my dad and mum, it was my mum and her partner at the time.
“So if I had needed permission I could have easily got it, but I genuinely thought for other children who need the permission of their parents and that would be really, really, difficult.
“So I got in touch with Fay [Jones, the former Conservative MP for Brecon and Radnorshire] just asking for support and when I got a response I got to be excited so I asked ‘can I do a week’s work experience?’ I did a week and safe to say just didn’t leave.”
Making a difference to people, is, he says his biggest motivation.
“It’s the difference you can actually make and whether that is getting someone’s bins collected, or one of the cases was a dropped kerb, because this girl, in a wheelchair, wanted to play with her friends in the park, which she wasn’t able to do.
“Whatever the issue is, it’s life changing to that individual. To us it might be a big issue, it might be a small issue, but the fact is, the constituent has got in touch with you and they’ve used all the other resources and there’s no one else.
“They’ve come to you because they think that you get the job done. I think it’s rewarding when you do help out people,” he says.
One of those in his party had already praised to me the hours he is putting into the campaign, he seems to have, incredible drive
“I think it was my upbringing that shaped me,” he says.
“I had really good encouraging parents and whatever I wanted to do whether it was when I had my stint of playing rugby, and I really enjoyed playing rugby, they were always there on the sidelines cheering me on.
“I do have a lot of drive and ambition, and if I see something that needs to be done, I just want to get it done,” he says.
Seeing Fay Jones lose her seat in 2024 when his party were wiped out in Wales, and then James Evans be sacked from the Tories before his defection to Reform UK, he has seen the messy side of politics. He knows the polls look bad for his party and isn’t going into any of this with his eyes closed.
“Despite all of that, myself and a small team have been out every single day since being selected as the lead candidate and I think it is because it’s that drive of the reward that we can make and the difference that we could make.
“Growing up in Radnorshire all my life, you see the things that aren’t necessarily working, things that need improving, I think that’s the biggest drive.
“You see the difference politics can make, eah, you have difficult conversations on the doorstep, you get the occasional door slammed in your face, and the other day I woke up to a really nasty message on my Facebook, but then I go knock on a door, and, one of the constituents has got an issue that I can actually make a difference with, and I can contact the minister, and say, ‘look, this is the situation, let’s work together, and what can we do to resolve the problem’.
“A lot of it can be resolved, but it just takes a lot of hard work, and I think that’s what I hope I can provide,” he says.
As we speak, he’s taking a break from campaigning in Presteigne, and despite the grilling he’d just had in the Radnorshire Arms he’s about to go back, with more leaflets, and enough time for a quick sandwich.
“The polls don’t reflect what we’re hearing on the ground. I’ve been right across the constituency over the past few weeks and where other parties have just delivered leaflets, we’re knocking on the doors and that makes an impact. But when we are knocking on those traditional Conservatives [doors], they’re saying, ‘yeah, we’ll stick with the Conservatives’.
“When we have knocked on doors of people who were voting Reform in 2024, they’ve now came back to us, whether that’s because they’ve seen the Reform group in Westminster or what not, there are a variety of reasons why people are coming back to us,” he says.
This new constituency starts just shy of Ludlow and goes right down to the Swansea Bay.
I tell him that candidates in a city measure their campaign by how many steps they’ve done a day, and pairs of shoes they’ve gone through, with a patch that vast, his Ford Fiesta’s mileage is his benchmark, that and the £10 shoes he grabbed in Tesco one day because the Sketchers he’d invested in weren’t comfy enough.
With just days to go until the polling stations in his vast patch open, how is he feeling?
“It is excitement,” he says, “but we’re not taking votes for granted. The polls are all over the place at the moment and I’m just going into this election thinking, as long as we get to 10 o’clock on polling day, and can think we’ve done the best we could.”
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