Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here.
The parliamentary by-election for the UK Labour-held seat of Gorton and Denton will occur on February 26. At the 2024 general election, Labour won with 50.8%, followed by the far-right Reform with 14.1%, the Greens with 13.2%, the Workers Party with 10.3% and the Conservatives with 7.9%.
Andy Burnham, Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, was blocked from standing by Labour’s National Executive Committee. The public reason was concerns about a by-election for Greater Manchester mayor, but Burnham was seen as a potential challenger to Keir Stamer’s Labour leadership. He needed a seat in the House of Commons to be Labour leader.
The Election Maps UK national poll aggregate gives Reform 29.8%, Labour 20.3%, the Conservatives 18.8%, the Greens 13.4% and the Liberal Democrats 12.4%. After dipping to third in December, Labour has edged back ahead of the Conservatives. On these vote shares, Reform would win a clear majority with 345 of the 650 Commons seats.
Upcoming US federal special elections
On January 31, Democrat Christian Menefee defeated a fellow Democrat to win the runoff for the Texas 18th federal House seat. The runoff occurred as no candidate won over 50% in the November 4 “jungle primary”. This seat was vacant for almost 11 months. Republicans now lead Democrats by 218-214 in the House of Representatives.
There are three upcoming federal specials. Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned her Georgia House seat on January 5, and a jungle primary special will occur March 10. It’s unlikely anyone will get over 50%, so a runoff will need to be scheduled. Democrat Mikie Sherrill was elected New Jersey governor in November, and a special for her House seat will occur April 16. A California Republican died on January 6, with the special to occur August 4.
In gerrymandering news, the Supreme Court in December reversed a lower court ruling that had annulled the Texas Republican gerrymander. This means Republicans can gain an additional five seats from Texas by gerrymandering. However, the Court on February 4 upheld California’s retaliatory Democratic gerrymander that will give Democrats five additional seats.
Virginia Democrats have proposed a 10-1 Democratic gerrymander of Virginia’s 11 House seats, gaining four seats. This will need a referendum to approve, with a poll having “yes” to gerrymandering leading by 51-43. A court has blocked this gerrymander, but Democrats are appealing.
Midterm elections of all the House and one-third of the Senate will occur this November. In Nate Silver’s generic ballot aggregate, Democrats lead Republicans by 47.9-42.3, a 5.6-point margin. Democrats’ position has improved since last November. Donald Trump’s net approval in Silver’s aggregate is -14.4, near his worst this term of -15.0.
Conservative LDP landslide at Japanese election
The Japanese lower house election occurred Sunday, just 15 months after the last election in late 2024. In 2024, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party and its Komeito allies lost their combined majority. After Sanae Takaichi was elected LDP leader and PM in October, Komeito split from the LDP, forcing the LDP to ally with another right-wing party (Ishin). At this election, Komeito allied with the centre-left Constitutional Democratic Party to form the Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA).
Of the 465 seats, 289 were elected by first past the post and 176 by 11 multi-member electorates using proportional representation. The LDP won 316 seats (up 125 since 2024), with the CRA winning just 49 (down 123) and Ishin 36 (up two). The LDP’s 316 seats is the most ever for a party in Japan. In the FPTP seats, the LDP defeated the CRA by 249-7 on vote shares of 49.2-21.6. The LDP has governed almost continuously since its formation in 1955.
Portugal and Chile
At Sunday’s Portuguese presidential runoff election, the centre-left Socialist candidate defeated the far-right Chega candidate by 66.8-33.2. While this was a good result for the left, the presidency is largely symbolic. At May 2025 legislative elections, the Socialists finished third behind the conservative PSD and Chega.
I previously covered the November Chile legislative elections and first round of the presidential election. At the December 14 presidential runoff, right-winger José Antonio Kast defeated Communist Jeannette Jara by 58.2-41.8. Kast replaces left-winger Gabriel Boric as president.
Please. Your information and commentary is excellent. But why must you label Reform UK “far right” but not label other parties. Firstly Reform is hardly far right but why not be consistent and label Labour “far left” and the Greens “extreme left”. I think you get my point.
Any thoughts on the upcoming Hungarian election, Adrian? That’s coming up on 12 April and polling seems to be a real mess for that one.
Could be some strategic voting in the UK by-election to block Reform.
Dingbat @ #NaN Thursday, February 12th, 2026 – 9:14 am
On the other side of the coin there could be strategic voting to defeat Labour. Especially if Starmer hasn’t resigned by then.
For those voters over there that dislike him, it’s only one of 650 seats, and if making Labour lose is what they have to do to get rid of him, a lot of voters would either stay home or hold their noses and vote Reform, or happily vote Green.
I label Reform as “far-right” as it’s not obvious from the party name what it stands for. UK Labour and Aus Labor are obviously similar, as are the UK and Aus Greens. The Conservatives are the conservative party. Reform UK is similar to Aus’ One Nation, which is now surging in polls.
Barbados is having elections today also, one could dream that the outcome will eventually be the ALP’s future also…
“Thorne’s centrist Democratic Labour Party (DLP) currently holds one seat versus the 29 held by Mottley’s Barbados Labour Party (BLP). The BLP swept the last two elections – 2018 and 2022 – winning all 30 seats of the nation’s House of Assembly.
The governing party lost one seat in 2024 only when Thorne, who was elected to represent the Christ Church South district for the BLP, crossed the floor and became leader of the opposition.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mia-mottley-aims-historic-third-term-barbados-election-2026-02-11/
Where DLP replaced by One Notion… (Catholics replaced by cookers)
Predictions about the next few years for Japan? She’s won big after whipping up (mostly totally false) anti-‘foreigner’ sentiment, and picking fights with China. Does she now have a problem in that with a big majority, she won’t be able to blame anyone else when the economy fails to magically revive itself? Will Japanese voters realise that forcing foreign residents to go to English classes twice a week won’t suddenly fix decades of economic stagnation, geopolitical realities and a huge issue with an ageing population?
I was recently in Japan and the non-stop anti-foreigner rhetoric was exhausting and ridiculous for a country that freely invites 40,000,000 tourists a year to visit. If it was a real problem they would cap those numbers, but of course Japan needs the money. So instead the system is apparently to invite us all to visit and then complain relentlessly when people occasionally litter or don’t stand in the right queue or don’t speak Japanese. It’s even our fault that rice is expensive, apparently (not a bad harvest followed by abuse of oligopoly control of the rice market, for example…). Of course it was also noticeable that half the menial jobs were being done by evil foreigners (see also: Australia; UK; USA).
On a related note, is the future of the UK for Reform to win the next election, drive the country over a cliff and cause everyone to come to their senses? But will the UK system prove any more resilient than the US if Reform tries Trump/Orban style distortion of democracy, particularly given the lack of a proper upper house and lack of a proper constitution?
As for the US special elections and polling, I’m fascinated that anyone continues to analyse these things as though there’s going to be free and fair midterms. Surely the only relevant data point is the extent to which Trump manages to corrupt the results?
Patrick Batemansays:
Thursday, February 12, 2026 at 1:54 pm
“Predictions about the next few years for Japan?”
1. Bad for their economy.
2. Less bad than most expect.
Patrick Bateman
What have you been drinking? Can we all have some?
Japan
Excellent result, meaning there should be little to no constraint to the PM’s plan to accelerate defence spending and be the much-needed counterweight to China in the region (allied with the US of course, thankfully). Whilst South Korea is useful, Japan packs a lot more punch and is particularly near to Taiwan.
UK
Gorton and Denton by-election
Greens are favourites – the seat’s demographics are fairly tailor-made for them, especially at a time when they’re polling more than double nationally, what they got at the last election.
They will probably benefit from the ‘stop Reform’ vote coalescing around them, but they are capable of tripping over their own shoelaces judging by some aspects of their campaign so far – so that accolade may instead usher Labour over the line.
If it truly remains unclear who is best placed and voters vote according to preference, then Reform have a chance of winning – but with the Muslim vote endorsing Greens en bloc, they are probably still favourites. Especially with Worker’s Party and Your Party (Corbyn) choosing to sit it out in a seat with such favourable demographics for them, so as to give Greens a clear run without dividing the communist & Muslim voting blocs (which have massive crossover, as is probably obvious).
Overall, these 3 parties could finish in any order but I think Labour is most likely to finish 3rd, and Reform most likely to finish 2nd regardless of whether Green or Labour come 1st.
Turnout will be key, and likely high for a UK by-election in a low-% voting seat.
On Friday (US time) the Virginia Supreme Court allowed the April referendum on the constitutional amendment to go forward but has scheduled a briefing schedule on an appeal against the lower court ruling with a hearing to take place at a later date.
Peter mares
Reform is labelled as ‘far right’ because it IS a far right party.