How good are our projections?

Our projections are based on how people voted last time there were district elections in the area, either in 2024, 2023 or in a small number of cases 2022. There have been some boundary changes in 2025, but we have accounted for these by averaging out the votes in the old areas and moving them over to the new areas.

The projections have limitations. These are:

  • The projections assume that people will vote the same way in 2025 as they did in 2024 or 2023. Nationally since the 2024 general election there has been a significant swing away from Labour to Lib Dems, Green and Reform.

  • The projections do not take account of the strengths and weaknesses of individual candidates.

  • In 2023 and 2024, the Liberal Democrats and Greens stood aside for each other in several seats. This is not expected to happen in 2025. This means we have had to make some assumptions about how the Liberal Democrat and Green votes will split out in 2025.

  • The Independent Oxford Alliance only stood in a limited number of seats in 2024. To calculate how many votes we expect them to win, we  have made assumptions based on the demographics of each area.

  • The effects of boundary changes are estimated on a flat basis. They do not take account of pockets of support for particular parties.

You can read a detailed explanation of our methodology.

How we made our recommendations

In 65 of the 69 divisions, we recommend whichever of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green is projected to take the most votes. In all of these divisions a Labour, Liberal Democrat or Green candidate is predicted to take either first or second place.

In three divisions, even though Labour is projected to win, we are recommending the Liberal Democrats or Green candidate. This is on the basis that the Greens and Liberal Democrats have stronger climate change policies than Labour, plus it would only take a very small numbers of voters to vote tactically for the Greens or Liberal Democrats to win the division.

In one division, we are recommending the Henley Residents Group in preference to the Conservatives.