Our Survey: Conservatives realistic but more optimistic about May’s elections

It seems six months really does make a difference. Not huge, but a difference.

At Conservative Party Conference last year the quiet whisperings were that having taken a beating in local elections in 2025, the prospects of another one in 2026 were high. One party insider suggested to me, then, that “the numbers are really awful“. This of course was three days before Kemi Badenoch’s speech which signalled a change in her confidence and perceptions of her determination which those watching surely saw, as did Robert Jenrick for whom May 2026 and the prospect of a bad showing for the Tories held the possibility of a jumping off point for a leadership bid.

We now know it was about this time he started talking privately with Reform UK.

With his sacking and then defection, the threat of an internal coup has drastically reduced – our latest shadow cabinet league table shows how far Badenoch has come since – and she is now by far the least unpopular (to be accurate about how that number works) party leader overall. So this set of elections on May the 7th are less dangerous for her, but still potentially tough for the Conservative Party.

Of course Reform have vowed that they’ll show the Tories to have “ceased to exist as a national party”, all part of their perfectly legitimate but possibly less credible ‘the Conservatives are dead’ strategy. Lord Ashcroft’s latest polling, oft disputed by Reform, suggests the numbers are changing nationally too.

This time last year we asked members to respond on a possible out come of May 2025 local elections and the predictions were accurately dire. 

This time, ahead of the May 2026 elections, it’s not quite the same.

There’s still a not insignificant 36.4 per cent that think the Tories will lose lots of seats, once again damaging the party on the ground but 60.3% think the results will be mixed with loses in some areas but gains in others. No surprise that only 2.1 percent think the Conservatives will win lots of seats. These results are about confounding only the worst predictions, accepting the brand is still difficult to sell less than two years after the huge General Election defeat, but survivable if Labour suffer a noticeable collapse in these elections.

The word from many of the more senior Conservative Party officials campaigning across the country is that in some areas the loses could be pretty bad, but in others – London gets mentioned a lot – there could be brighter news. There is also an anticipation that tactical voting and smaller margins of victory could throw out some unexpected results both good and bad.

Reform remain the biggest threat in the eyes of our survey panel.

It’s therefore no surprise to see that Reform are seen by over half of responders as the biggest threat. However talking to Conservative campaigners up and down the country, there are places where Reform is not in play, but the threat is the Liberal Democrats, highlighted in that 25.6 per cent figure.

The more observant readers will note there are Welsh Senedd elections and elections to the Scottish Parliament, so both the SNP featured in this question for our survey at 1.3 per cent and Plaid Cymru at 0.6 per cent. Of course in both those elections it is likely that Reform are seen by our responders as the bigger threat to Tories standing, and would be included in the 51.1 per cent figure. However one Scottish newspaper suggests things are not going quite to plan for Reform in Scotland.

5 per cent of responders had no election in their area.

Reform UK will have a decent night in May, there seems little doubt of that, but there are signs it may not be the rout they wanted and have insisted is inevitable.