7 May 2026, was a date many may have heard buzzing around Cardiff recently, as the Senedd election took place. But what were the students of Cardiff voting for? All students living in Cardiff, wherever they were from within the UK, were eligible to vote in the Senedd election.

The Senedd is the Welsh Parliament, which is democratically elected and represents the interests of Wales and its people, as well as making laws for Wales. Every six years, voters in Wales decide who they want to represent their local constituency in the Welsh Parliament. This year, however, things were slightly different, as the constituencies had been changed from 40 to 16, with six seats available within each constituency.

This meant that six members were elected in each area, resulting in 96 seats in parliament rather than the previous 60. The two constituencies in Cardiff, following the revision of the boundaries were Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf, covering Cardiff North and Cardiff East, and Caerdydd Penarth, covering Cardiff West, Cardiff South and Penarth. However, voters still had one vote for one political party, with the six seats then shared out proportionally based on each party’s share of the total vote.

The six main parties were Plaid Cymru, Welsh Labour, Welsh Conservatives, Wales Green Party, Reform UK Wales and the Welsh Liberal Democrats. The last election, in 2021, saw Welsh Labour take the majority, with all four Cardiff constituencies electing Labour representatives. Based on the latest figures published by YouGov, taken from 3,069 Welsh adults, the two parties in contention for the majority were Plaid Cymru and Reform UK Wales, with a predicted 37 seats for Reform UK Wales and 36 for Plaid Cymru.

Neither was expected to have enough to form a majority, meaning a coalition government was likely to take place with other parties. Added to this, with five of the six main parties saying they would not form a coalition with Reform, it remained interesting to see how this would play out. But who were students voting for in this election?

With roughly 62,000 students at university and living in Cardiff, they were a significant target for political parties. To get a gauge of what the student population was thinking during the campaign trail, Gair Rhydd put out two polls on Overheard at Cardiff University to find out students’ voting intentions ahead of polling day, receiving a total of 406 responses. One poll allowed respondents to remain anonymous, while the other was public.

With 278 of the 406 respondents, Plaid Cymru came first in the student polls; receiving the most votes by a landslide. The Green Party received the second highest number with 72 intended votes, while Welsh Labour came third with 18 votes. This partly reflected the predictions made by YouGov and an ITV Wales data set, which predicted that Plaid Cymru would win in both Caerdydd Penarth and Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf, with Reform coming in second.

However, results from the Overheard poll showed that Reform was nowhere near second place in students’ voting intentions, with only 11 votes for the party. The party leading the student vote was Plaid Cymru, with a significant majority. When asked about Reform’s surprising popularity in the upcoming election, one Welsh Cardiff University student said: “It makes me scared for the future of Welsh culture and language, especially after seeing the recent clip of Nigel Farage referring to Welsh people as ‘foreign speakers’.” The results from this poll suggested that students were saying no to parties such as Reform UK, the Welsh Conservatives, Propel and the Welsh Liberal Democrats, as they received very few votes.

It was always going to be interesting to see the results of this election, as it was expected to cause division in public opinion. No matter what party students were voting for, May 7 was their chance to head down to the polling stations and have their say.