Reform projected to take Suffolk – but modellers urge caution

The projection, published by national elections analyst PollCheck, suggests Reform UK could win 59 of the 70 seats up for election at Suffolk County Council today, taking majority control from the Conservatives. The same model projects the Conservatives — who have run the council continuously since 2017 — to lose all 55 of the seats they secured at the last county election in 2021.

If borne out, it would be one of the most dramatic political realignments in the county's modern history. But "if" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and the modellers themselves are clear that county council projections in 2026 are "where it's most likely to be wrong."

What the projection says

PollCheck's headline figures for Suffolk make for interesting reading. Reform UK is projected to win 59 seats, the Greens 6, Labour 4, and the Liberal Democrats 1. The Conservatives, who took 55 seats in 2021 on a 48% vote share, are projected at zero.

The model gives a range for each party rather than a single number — Reform on 45 to 60 seats, the Greens on 5 to 13, Labour on 1 to 7, the Lib Dems on 0 to 3, and the Conservatives on 0 to 7. Those ranges represent an 80% confidence interval, meaning the actual result is expected to fall within them roughly four times in five.

At Ipswich Borough Council, where only 16 of the 48 seats are up for election, the picture is rather different. Whatever happens over the next two days, Labour will retain overall control with 27 seats, but is projected to lose 11 of the 16 wards it is defending. Reform is projected to gain 11 seats from a standing start. The Conservatives are projected on 6, the Lib Dems on 3, and the Greens on 1.

Within Ipswich, the model has Reform winning seats, including Whitton on a 26.6 percentage-point margin, Castle Hill, Bridge, Stoke Park and Sprites. Labour is projected to hold Whitehouse, Rushmere, St Clement's and Priory Heath. Alexandra is projected as a Green gain, and St Margaret's as a Lib Dem hold.

How the model works

PollCheck's methodology is more sophisticated than the uniform national swing approach used by most published forecasters. Rather than applying a single national figure to every council, the model projects each of the roughly 7,000 wards being contested individually.

The starting point in each ward is the last result. National polling tells the model how each party's vote share has shifted since that election, and a swing is applied — adjusted for local demographics, incumbency and the freshness of the underlying data. The model then runs 1,000 times, with random variation each time, to produce a range of possible outcomes.

Where wards have not been contested recently, or where parties such as Reform did not stand at the last election, the model uses a four-tier system that draws on by-election results, the 2024 general election, census demographics and a national entry model. For Suffolk, the model has been calibrated against more than 50 county council by-elections from 2025 and 2026.

The projection has also been adjusted to reflect the official candidate lists published on 8 April. Where a party is not standing in a ward, its vote share has been redistributed to those that are.

Why caution is essential

PollCheck's own methodology document is candid about the limits of what its model can do. The 2026 elections, the modellers note, are "the first" live test of the system. The backtests covering 2022 to 2025 look reasonable — control of the right party projected in 72% of councils on average — but the six-party fragmentation in 2026 is, in their words, "beyond anything in the training data."

County councils are flagged specifically as the area where the model is most likely to be wrong. Suffolk's county wards were last contested in 2021, when Reform had no local presence at all. The model is having to project a party from near-zero to the largest force in the county — a leap it has never had to make before in this combination of councils.

The methodology also lists a series of known biases. The Liberal Democrats were over-projected by 460 seats nationally in the 2025 backtest. Independents and local groups have been undercounted by more than 200 seats every year tested. The Conservatives have been consistently under-projected, partly because incumbent councillors in shire and suburban wards tend to outperform their national party.

PollCheck does not conduct its own polling. Its projections are built from national polling data, local election history and demographic modelling — not from ward-level surveys of Suffolk voters. Individual ward results, the modellers stress, will vary from these estimates.

Projects do not factor in any local knowledge or insight.

Where the projection could miss

Beyond the modellers' own caveats, conversations with voters and candidates across Ipswich in recent weeks suggest at least one party may be set to outperform the headline figures: the Greens.

The party has grown in recent times, holding nine seats on the current county council and taking control of Mid Suffolk District Council in 2023. Green candidates have been running active ground campaigns across Ipswich, and have framed themselves explicitly as the most effective vote against Reform — citing canvassing data from a recent Suffolk County Council by-election in the Tower division that put them within striking distance of Reform. They are also buoyed by by-election results in Gorton and Denton and hope to steal young, left-leaning voters away from Labour.

PollCheck's projection has the Greens on six county seats, but a range that runs as high as 13. Local conversations suggest they could potentially significantly outperform the upper end of that range. The model itself flags Green projections as one of the areas where late candidacy data and local organisation can shift outcomes meaningfully.

The Conservatives, too, will surely fare better than the zero seats the model has projected. The model's range allows for up to seven Conservative seats in Suffolk. An historical complete wipe-out, while projected as the central estimate, sits at the lower end of the modelled range and is unlikely.

And in tightly fought wards, where Labour and Reform sit just low percentage points apart, small shifts in turnout or local factors could swing the result either way.

What is actually at stake

It is worth restating what today's votes will and will not decide.

At Ipswich Borough Council, the political balance cannot change. Only a third of the seats are up for election, and Labour's overall majority is secure for the next two years regardless of today's results. What is at stake is the size of that majority, the shape of the opposition and the political trajectory heading into next year's unitary elections.

At Suffolk County Council, every one of the 70 seats is being contested. To win majority control outright, a party needs 36. The Conservatives need to hold 36 to retain power; Labour, the Greens and Reform would each need to win at least 36. A no overall control administration, a minority arrangement or a formal coalition all remain possibilities.

Whichever way the results fall, the councillors elected today will serve a foreshortened mandate. The current two-tier system is being replaced with three new unitary authorities, including the new Ipswich and South Suffolk council — known to many as Greater Ipswich. Today's councillors will help shape that transition.

The bottom line

Projections are not predictions. PollCheck's model points to a Reform sweep at county level and a bruising day for Labour in the borough, but the modellers themselves are clear that 2026 is uncharted territory — and that county council projections, in particular, carry the widest margins of error.

The headline numbers are eye-catching. They are also, by the modellers' own admission, built on a model that has never been tested in a live election with this much volatility, in a county where one of the leading parties did not exist locally five years ago.

The actual results will be counted at the Corn Exchange tomorrow, with Suffolk County Council votes counted from 09:45 to 12:30 and Ipswich Borough Council from 13:00 to 15:00. Full results are expected by 16:00. We will be there throughout the day to bring you the numbers, the reaction and what it all means for Ipswich and Suffolk.

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