Wikipedia

Projected National Share

Projected National Share (PNS) is a statistic used in British politics. It refers to the translation of local election results into an estimation of the national levels of support that each party would have received had the local elections been taking place across the whole country and with each of the significant political parties standing candidates everywhere.[1] PNS shows which party has ‘won’ any given annual local election cycle (in terms of achieving the highest projected share of the national vote). It also enables psephologists and political commentators to compare the performances of the main political parties (by their projected national shares of the vote) across different years and different local election cycles. This is helpful and important, given that local elections take place in different parts of the country each year; in some years the bulk of the contests can be taking place in the ‘Tory shires’, whereas in other years the local contests can be taking place predominantly in cities and metropolitan areas that have traditionally favoured the Labour Party.[2] The numbers give an impression of how the political parties would have fared if the entire country had been casting a local ballot.[3] PNS can be calculated in different ways.[4]

Projected National Share estimates the national share of the vote for each of the main political parties based on the voting patterns in any given local election (pictured Palace of Westminster).

History

edit

BBC News has calculated PNS since 1982.[5] They use key wards which are reflective of the country as a whole in order to calculate party share.[6] Two academics at the University of Plymouth, Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, calculate National Equivalent share (NEV) using a different approach.[7][8]

Author and peer Mark Pack maintains a historical record named LocalBase of both sets of results.[7][9]

By local election

edit
Election Lab Con Lib Dem Ref[a] Grn Other[b] Ref.
2012 38 31 16 N/a N/a 15 [10]
2013 29 25 14 23 N/a 9 [11]
2014 31 29 13 17 N/a 10 [12]
2015 29 35 11 13 N/a 12 [13]
2016 31 30 15 12 N/a 12
2017 27 38 18 5 N/a 12
2018 35 35 16 N/a N/a 14
2019 28 28 19 N/a N/a 25
2021 29 36 17 N/a N/a 12
2022 35 30 19 N/a 11 5
2023 35 26 20 N/a 12 7
2024 34 25 17 2 13 9
2025 20 15 17 30 11 7
2026 17 17 16 26 18 6 [14]

Notes

edit
  1. ↑ UKIP from 2013–2017, also led by Nigel Farage until 2016.
  2. ↑ Independents, residents associations and minor parties (including Greens from 2015–2019, UKIP in 2012 and after 2017, and Reform UK in 2019).

References

edit
  1. ↑ "These are the numbers to watch in the local election results". The Independent. 4 May 2023. Retrieved 2 May 2025.
  2. ↑ "How can you tell who's won the local elections?". BBC News. 29 April 2018. Retrieved 2 May 2025.
  3. ↑ "Local elections 2023: What do opinion polls suggest?". BBC News. 27 April 2023. Retrieved 2 May 2025.
  4. ↑ Curtice, John; Fishe, Stephen (1 May 2025). "Understanding the Local Elections Projected National Share (PNS) in 2025". Elections Etc. Retrieved 3 May 2025.
  5. ↑ Neame, Katie (3 May 2024). "Local election results 2024: BBC projected national share puts Labour on 34%". LabourList. Retrieved 2 May 2025.
  6. ↑ "Curtice: Conservatives remain in deep electoral trouble". BBC News. 3 May 2024. Retrieved 2 May 2025.
  7. 1 2 Pack, Mark (26 April 2022). "How to draw national trends from local election results: national vote share calculations". Mark Pack. Retrieved 2 May 2025.
  8. ↑ "Local elections vote shares: the measures used to project local votes nationally are better than looking at the number of seats won or lost, but local voting does differ from general election vote intention". British Politics and Policy at LSE. 3 May 2013. Archived from the original on 21 January 2025. Retrieved 2 May 2025.
  9. ↑ "Download LocalBase". Mark Pack website. Retrieved 4 May 2025.
  10. ↑ "Local elections 2012: fed up, not fired up". The Guardian. 4 May 2012. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 May 2026.
  11. ↑ "Local elections: Nigel Farage hails results as a 'game changer'". BBC News. 2 May 2013. Retrieved 10 May 2026.
  12. ↑ "Nigel Farage: UKIP to be serious players at general election". BBC News. 22 May 2014. Retrieved 10 May 2026.
  13. ↑ "Local elections 2025 in maps and charts". BBC News. 3 May 2025.
  14. ↑ "BBC projected national vote share puts Reform on 26%". BBC News. 8 May 2026.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Projected_National_Share&oldid=1353755016"