The Conservative Party could be wiped out in Somerset at the general election, with one poll predicting that the Liberal Democrats or Labour will win each of the seven new seats across the county.

Somerset residents will be casting their votes between 7am and 10pm on Thursday (July 4), choosing both the new national government and who will represent them in parliament for the next five years.

With the Tories performing consistently poorly in the national polls, the Lib Dems have been campaigning hard across much of the county, hoping for a reverse of the 2015 ‘blue wave’ which saw many of their traditional heartlands change hands.

A new Survation poll, published on Tuesday evening (July 2), predicts that Rishi Sunak’s party will lose all seven seats within the Somerset Council area, with six going to the Lib Dems and Labour winning one.

The Survation poll is predicting a massive Labour landslide, with Keir Starmer’s party expected to win 484 out of 650 – more than Tony Blair managed in his iconic landslide victory in 1997, which ended 18 years of Tory rule.

The poll predicts the Tories will end on 64 seats and the Lib Dems will have 61, with 17 going to Reform UK, ten to the SNP and three each to the Greens and Plaid Cymru.

Here’s a breakdown of the runners and riders in each Somerset seat, and what we could all wake up to on Friday morning (July 5):

Bridgwater

Survation prediction: Labour gain

Labour’s Leigh Redman (who currently represents the Bridgwater North and central division on Somerset Council) is predicted to narrowly win the new Bridgwater seat, which also includes the coastal towns of Burnham-on-Sea and Highbridge.

Labour has traditionally polled well in Bridgwater itself, while the Conservatives have traditionally fared better in the more rural parts of the former Sedgemoor district.

Mr Redman (who has faced criticism locally for not attending hustings) is expected to finish five percentage points ahead of Conservative candidate and former MP Ashley Fox – who dismissed reports in the national press that he had lied about his political ambitions before the election was called.

Lib Dem candidate Claire Sully (who represents the Mendip South division) is predicted to come third, two percentage points behind Mr Fox, with Reform UK William Fagg expected to finish fourth.

Full list of candidates:

Frome and East Somerset

Survation prediction: Liberal Democrat hold

This seat has been one of the hardest to predict, with YouGov’s first MRP poll of the campaign branding this a three-way marginal and predicting Conservative candidate Lucy Trimnell would narrowing win the seat back from the Lib Dems.

But Survation disagrees, predicting Ms Trimnell (who represents Wincanton and Bruton on Somerset Council) will finish third – nearly five percentage points behind Labour candidate Robin Moss and a further three points behind the predicted winner, Lib Dem candidate Anna Sabine.

The Lib Dems won the Somerton and Frome by-election back in July 2023, before the seat was split in two by the boundary changes, and will be hoping that the Green vote in and around Frome does not swell substantially.

This is one of several seats in Somerset where it will come down to people voting with their conscience and choosing to vote tactically.

Full list of candidates:

Glastonbury and Somerton

Survation prediction: Liberal Democrat hold

This contest is a rematch of the Somerton and Frome by-election, with Lib Dem candidate Sarah Dyke (who represents the Blackmoor Vale division on Somerset Council) hoping to see off Faye Purbrick (who represents the Yeovil South division) for a second time.

While an earlier YouGov poll predicts that the Tories would narrowly win back the seat, Survation is predicting a thumping Lib Dem victory, with Ms Dyke expected to win more than twice as many votes as Ms Purbrick or the Reform UK candidate, Tom Carter.

The Lib Dems have thrown significant resources at this part of the West Country, with party leader Sir Ed Davey popping into Glastonbury for an ice cream and bike ride on June 11 and foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran rallying the troops in Langport on June 26 before her appearance at the Glastonbury Festival.

If these polls are correct, this seat will have gone from one of the safest Tory seats in the country to a Lib Dem stronghold in less than five years.

Full list of candidates:

Taunton and Wellington

Survation prediction: Liberal Democrat gain

Rebecca Pow, who has represented the Taunton Deane seat for the Conservatives since 2015, faces an uphill battle to remain an MP if these polls are to be believed.

In addition to the boundary changes, which remove many of the rural villages north of both towns, Ms Pow may be badly by the Tories’ record on sewage discharges into watercourses, given her position before the election as a Defra minister.

Lib Dem challenger Gideon Amos, who ran against Ms Pow in 2019, looks set to trounce his opponent, ending with nearly twice as many votes and winning more than 50 per cent of the vote across the constituency.

Reform UK and Labour are predicted to finish third and fourth respectively, within two percentage points of each other.

Full list of candidates:

Tiverton and Minehead

Survation prediction: Liberal Democrat gain

Earlier on in the campaign, Conservative candidate Ian Liddell Grainger seemed to have a clear lead over his nearest rival, the Lib Dem candidate Rachel Gilmour.

Mr Liddell-Grainger won the old Bridgwater constituency for the Conservatives in 2001, before moving to the Bridgwater and West Somerset seat in 2010, and has seen his majority increase at successive elections despite refusing to take part in hustings (including the Langford Budville edition on June 22).

But if Survation’s polling is accurate, he faces a big defeat to Ms Gilmour, who is expected to finish 13 percentage points ahead, with Labour coming in third just behind the Tories.

Ms Gilmour’s outspoken demeanour looks set to build on the party’s victory in the Tiverton and Honiton by-election of June 2022, and could leave the former West Somerset area without a Conservative MP for the first time in decades.

Full list of candidates:

Wells and Mendip Hills

Survation prediction: Liberal Democrat gain

James Heappey’s resignation deprived us of a fourth showdown between himself and local rival Tessa Munt, who represented the Wells seat between 2010 and 2015 and represents the city on Somerset Council to this day.

The initial YouGov indicated a Conservative hold, with the villages within the Mendip Hills expected to cancel out the Lib Dems’ power base in Wells and the neighbouring villages to the south.

But Survation is predicting that Ms Munt will soon be back at Westminster, finishing five percentage points ahead of Tory candidate Meg Powell-Chandler.

Labour candidate Joe Joseph is expected to finish in third just two percentage points behind the Tories, which Reform UK candidate Helen Hims (who stood in the Wells seat in 2015 for UKIP) expected to finish in fourth some distance behind.

Full list of candidates:

Yeovil

Survation prediction: Liberal Democrat gain

Marcus Fysh, another Conservative MP elected in 2015, will be looking nervously at these projected results in his seat, which has the fewest boundary changes of any of the new Somerset constituencies.

Lib Dem challenger Adam Dance (who represents South Petherton and Islemoor on Somerset Council) looks set to win big, being predicted to beat Mr Fysh by more than 16 percentage points – three points higher than the initial YouGov poll.

Despite a strong campaign by Green candidate Serena Wootton, she is expected to finish in fifth place, with Labour’s Rebecca Montacute predicted to finishg narrowly ahead of Reform UK candidate Laura Bailhache (whose conduct at the Yeovil hustings on June 24 raised several eyebrows).

Winning this seat back would be a big triumph for the Lib Dems, winning back the seat once held by Paddy Ashdown and David Laws.

Full list of candidates: