Labour's Bev Craig is on course to win the by-election to become the new Greater Manchester Mayor, a new poll suggests. The YouGov survey, carried out between July 8 and 15, puts the Manchester City Council leader on 38% of the vote after the first round, 14 points above Reform UK's Sian Astley.
Supplementary Vote System Returns
The by-election, to be held on Thursday, July 30, sees the return of the 'supplementary vote' system, which had been abolished by the Conservative government in 2022. Under this system, voters select a first and second choice. If no candidate wins more than 50% of first-choice votes, all candidates other than the top two are eliminated, with their votes reallocated to their second choice.
Based on responses from 2,200 voters in Greater Manchester, the poll puts the Green Party's Geraldine Goggins third on 17%, the Tories' Phil Eckersley fourth on 11%, followed by Restore Britain's Marlon West with 7% and the Lib Dems' Richard Kilpatrick on 3%.
Projected Second-Round Victory
If these results were replicated, Ms Craig would fall short of the 50% required to win outright in the first round, but everyone other than her and Ms Astley would be eliminated. In this scenario, the poll predicts that once second-preference votes are taken into account, Ms Craig would finish on 62%, 24 points ahead of Ms Astley.
The new data follows a poll carried out by Findoutnow, published earlier this week, which also put Ms Craig on 38%. However, that survey suggested Reform UK would only get 19% and would be pipped to second by the Greens on 22% after first-round votes. It predicted Ms Craig would beat the Greens' Ms Goggins 64% to 36% after second-preference votes were taken into account.
Andy Burnham's Legacy
In a further boost for incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who stepped down as mayor last month after nine years following his victory in the by-election to become the new Makerfield MP, additional YouGov polling shows more than two-thirds of Greater Mancunians believe he did a good job as mayor. The polling of 1,040 adults between July 8 and 16 shows Burnham is particularly seen as successful on transport, with three-quarters of Greater Mancunians (75%) thinking he did a good job on the issue.
Nearly half of residents (46%) also believe he did a good job on economic growth, relative to 26% feeling he did a bad job. However, people are more divided on Burnham's record on policing, with 36% thinking he did a good job versus 30% thinking he did a bad job. He was also perceived as having performed poorly on housing by a margin of 39% to 31%.
A total of 44% of people said he was right to step down and run in the Makerfield by-election, compared to 31% who felt he should have served his full third term, as he had previously promised. Mr Burnham will officially become the Labour leader this afternoon and will take over as PM when Sir Keir Starmer tenders his resignation to the King on Monday.
