What will election night look like for Warwick? Key battlegrounds in Coventry and Warwickshire

A general election has been called for 4 July, but what exactly will this look like for the area around the University of Warwick?

Locally, there are nine seats to be filled around Warwick at the election, with three in Coventry and six in Warwickshire. Last term, the Coventry seats were Labour dominated, with the party taking all three, whilst the Conservative Party took a majority of the Warwickshire seats.

The three Coventry seats have always traditionally been Labour strongholds, with a Conservative not having been elected in the city since 1959. At the last election, Coventry North East saw Labour’s Colleen Fletcher win with a comfortable 17-point majority.

The seat has now been abolished, with Fletcher stepping down, and will be replaced by the new constituency of Coventry East. Mary Creagh, the MP for Wakefield until 2019, and a former Shadow Cabinet minister, is Labour’s candidate for the seat at this election, and is widely expected to win the constituency.

The Conservative Party will be hoping to flip these razor-thin majorities come polling day

The city’s two other seats, Coventry North West and Coventry South, also elected Labour MPs at the 2019 election, but by far tighter margins – with majorities of just 609 votes between them.

The Conservative Party will be hoping to flip these razor-thin majorities come polling day. Entrepreneur Tom Mercer in Coventry North West will face off against Labour’s Taiwo Owatemi, first elected to the seat in 2019. To the south, Councillor Mattie Heaven is challenging sitting MP, Zarah Sultana, an outspoken voice within her own party.

The two Warwickshire constituencies of Kenilworth and Southam, and Stratford-on-Avon, are seen as safe Conservative areas, boasting two former Cabinet ministers between them – Jeremy Wright, the Attorney General under Theresa May, and Nadhim Zahawi, the Education Secretary, and briefly Chancellor under Boris Johnson.

However, amidst dire poll ratings for the party, their dominance in either of the seats no longer looks assured. The latter may be swinging towards the Liberal Democrats, who announced the seat as one of their targets for the election in May. And in the latest MRP projection, produced by Survation on 15 June, Labour squeaks a win in Kenilworth and Southam by just 1.2%.

The four remaining Warwickshire seats – North Warwickshire and Bedworth, Nuneaton, Rugby, and Warwick and Leamington – have historically been seen as ‘bellwether’ seats between the Conservatives and Labour, indicating the prevailing national mood.

All three Tory seats have been designated ‘battleground’ targets for Labour

Conservatives currently hold three out of four, having held the seats since 2010, when the party ousted Labour from government under David Cameron. The last, Warwick and Leamington, has been Labour-held since 2017, when candidate Matt Western unexpectedly won the seat.

All three Tory seats have been designated ‘battleground’ targets for Labour, as it looks to retake the constituencies it last held in office, and the party can be expected to push hard to seize these seats come polling day.

As of 30 May 2024, Parliament has been dissolved, meaning there are now officially no MPs until the July election. With just weeks to go before election night, the race is truly on to decide the electoral makeup of the next Parliament, and 4 July will decide the future direction of the country.