As voters head to the polls in the July 4 General Election, here is the situation in the northern end of Somerset.

Across Bath, North East Somerset and Hanham, North Somerset, and Weston-super-Mare, three Conservatives and one Liberal Democrat are defending their seats. But several polls claim only one of them will still be in Parliament on Friday.

The run up to this election has been defined by the near-constant publishing of MRP polls. These polls use modelling based on demographics and some local polling to predict how the swing may go differently across each individual seat. It is a method of polling which allows pollsters to show a specific result in every constituency — but is not quite the same as conducting a poll in every area.

Different polling companies’ MRP polls can vary and how accurate these predictions are — and whether they will end up influencing how people vote — will not be known until the results start coming in during the small hours of Friday morning.

MRP polls from YouGov and Survation have painted much of Somerset Liberal Democrat yellow, suggesting the Tory wipeout predicted across the country will also hit local MPs here. But at the northern end of the county, it is Labour, not the Liberal Democrats, that pollsters think voters will be switching to.

Labour victories are predicted by pollsters in North East Somerset and Hanham, North Somerset, and Weston-super-Mare: three constituencies currently held by the Conservatives. In Bath, polls suggest Liberal Democrat Wera Hobhouse will keep her seat.

But do these polls reflect the situation on the ground? Here is what is happening in each of the seats as Somerset heads into polling day:

Liberal Democrats will be feeling quietly confident in Bath, which Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse has represented since 2017.

An ancient constituency which has sent representatives to Parliament since 1295, the seat today is largely a Liberal Democrat/Conservative battleground. It was held by Conservative Chris Patten through the 1980s but has largely been in Liberal Democrat hands since 1992. After Don Foster’s more than 20 year stint as MP, it was briefly won back by Conservative Ben Howlett in 2015, only for Wera Hobhouse to turn the city yellow again two years later.

Conservative challenger James Wright is hoping to change that, but — with polls indicating a Tory rout nationally and a swing to Labour — the party’s candidate Dan Bewley is hoping to overtake him and put Labour in second place in the seat.

Meanwhile Colin Blackburn, who has been an independent councillor for Westmoreland on Bath and North East Somerset Council for nine years, is hoping the city will break with the party system altogether and elect him as an independent MP. But it’s a crowded field in the city which also has Theresa Hall standing  for Reform, Dominic Tristram standing for the Greens, and Matthew Alford standing for George Galloway’s Workers Party.

The race also features Bill Blockhead — who has been campaigning from a bath in Bath  — and A.N.ON who wants to offer a “positive negation” at the ballot box.

Though most well known for its wealthy Georgian city centre, some parts of Bath area in the ten percent most deprived areas in the country. Low traffic neighbourhoods have been a controversial issue in the city, as they are rolled out by the Liberal Democrat-controlled Bath and North East Somerset Council.

But when opposing them was made a central issue of the Conservative’s general election campaign in 2023, hoped-for-votes did not appear. Only Liberal Democrats, independents, and Green councillors represent seats in the city — but local elections usually have a much lower turnout and see different behaviour to national votes so should not be taken as a guide.

The Conservatives’ Jacob Rees-Mogg is one of the most iconic characters in British politics, which has led to North East Somerset and Hanham being seen as the site of a potential “Portillo moment” if he loses.

The Bristol suburb of Hanham in South Gloucestershire has been added to the western half of the former North East Somerset seat to create the new seat of North East Somerset and Hanham. The new constituency now spans the edge of Cotswolds to the edge of the Mendips and seven candidates who want to represent the area in Parliament.

But though the battlefield is new, it is set to be the rematch of an old political battle. Dan Norris, the former Labour MP for North East Somerset’s predecessor seat of Wansdyke (which had also included Hanham, as well as even more of rural North East Somerset), was unseated by Mr Rees-Mogg in 2010.

Now Mr Norris, who is also the current West of England Metro Mayor, is standing in the seat again in the hopes of winning it back off Sir Jacob. While it is a role that has helped to raise his profile, it also creates the risk of political baggage. Cuts to publicly supported buses across rural North East Somerset are a major local issue and its is Mr Norris’s who is responsible for commissioning them. It has led to a major row between him and Liberal Democrat-run Bath and North East Somerset Council about who should fund them.

MRP polls, together with the fact that Mr Norris is the former MP may lead to him being seen as the tactical vote for those hoping for a “Portillo moment.” But the Liberal Democrat candidate Dine Romero — also a prominent figure in local politics having led Bath and North East Somerset Council from 2019 to 2021 — has said the polls do not reflect what she is hearing on the doorstep. The Liberal Democrats are hoping that the general election result will reflect the local elections, which saw them paint most of North East Somerset yellow, but voters often make different decisions at local and national level.

Sir Jacob has previously held the seat comfortably but an insurgent Reform UK looks set to take the support of some of the people who would usually vote for him, making the seat look more winnable to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Sir Jacob warned in February that the loss of the Kingswood byelection would not have happened if Reform voters had backed the Conservative candidate.

If Sir Jacob lost his own seat under the same circumstances, it would be a bitter pill to swallow for the Brexiteer who agrees with Nigel Farage that they should be in the same party (they only disagree on which of their parties that should be). He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “If they vote for me, Reform voters will get 90% of what they want and they have a chance of electing an MP — when Reform on its own is, I would say, a very long shot in this constituency.”

But a key pull for voting Reform for many is a disillusionment with the Conservatives and a desire to vote for someone else. Reform candidate Paul MacDonnell has said himself that he likes Sir Jacob but warned: “If you vote for Jacob Rees-Mogg and the Tories get in, all you’re going to get is another Tory government.”

Meanwhile vote splitting could also be an issue for the Greens. Keynsham town councillor and economics professor Edmund Cannon is the Green Party candidate in the seat, but independent Nicholas Hales is also running and wants people to vote for him to make a statement against privatised water. He has been involved with the Greens previously but has opposed those he sees as “watermelons” in the party — politically green on the outside but red on the inside — as he wants to focus more on issues like extinction.

Finally, the Monster Raving Loony Party’s Barmy Brunch hopes to “provide a none of the above alternative” as well as a statutory brunch hour — although he has a serious point behind his campaign about mental health too.

MRP polls have also suggested North Somerset could elect its first Labour MP, if they can be believed.

Although the focus may be on Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservatives losing North Somerset — if it happened — would be indicative of a much more seismic shift. The Conservatives have represented the area for 100 years and, having been the MP for a third of that time, Dr Liam Fox is the longest-serving MP in all of Somerset.

The constituency spans from the Avon Gorge to the Severn Estuary, taking in the three towns of Clevedon, Nailsea, and Portishead. Boundary changes have seen Yatton leave the constituency for the Wells and Mendip Hills seat. In 2019, Sir Liam had a majority of about 17,000, winning twice as many votes as second-place Labour.

In the 2023 local elections, North Somerset was notable for staving off the Tory losses that beset most councils in England. But a campaign focussed on opposition to North Somerset Council’s unpopular “wiggly lines” on Clevedon seafront is likely to have been one factor in this, and local elections often see fewer people voting and for different parties and reasons.

Sadik Al-Hassan, a pharmacist from Emersons Green, is Labour’s challenger they are hoping will be able to unseat Sir Liam at this election. Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats have once again fielded Ash Cartman, who has represented Long Ashton on North Somerset Council since 2019, as their candidate.

The Greens and Reform have both fielded younger candidates. Nailsea local Oscar Livesey Lodwick is in his mid-20s and is standing for the Greens while Alexander Kokkinoftas, who moved to the UK from Cyprus in 2018, is standing for Reform after finishing his A-Levels at Clevedon School last year.

Meanwhile Suneil Basu, a school teacher who previously stood twice as a Green candidate in Weston-super-Mare, is standing for George Galloway’s Workers Party.

Weston-super-Mare is another seat which pollsters are saying could soon elect its first Labour MP.

Britain’s most iconic seaside town has been represented in Parliament by Conservative John Penrose for almost 20 years. First elected in 2005, he won it from Liberal Democrat Briain Cotter who had held the seat since 1997, the town’s only non-Conservative MP since Liberal Frank Murrell’s fleeting stint as MP in 1924. But MRP polls now suggest the town could go Labour for the first time in its history.

The Victorian seaside resort today includes some of the most deprived areas in Somerset and has been without a 24 hour A&E at Weston General since 2017. But the town has recently received £20m from the Conservative government’s Levelling Up Fund to help restore the dilapidated Birnbeck Pier and turn the Tropicana into an events venue. North Somerset Council — run by a partnership of every party except the Conservatives — bid for the funding and Mr Penrose called a debate in Parliament to argue in support.

In 2019, the Weston-super-Mare result virtually mirrored North Somerset. Just like Sir Liam, Mr Penrose had a majority of 17,000 and received more than twice as many votes as second-place Labour. But Labour are keen to take the seat, with candidate Dan Aldridge being arguably the most visible campaigner of the Labour candidates in the four seats.

The town has seen an influx of people moving to it from Bristol, the Labour Party’s south west stronghold, which could also impact the vote. The Conservatives must also contend with some voters leaving the Conservatives for Reform UK, which is set to be a challenge for the Conservatives nationwide.

Reform candidate Richard Pearse is a Commando-trained veteran, who has worked in academia and business since leaving the military. Meanwhile Liberal Democrat Patrick Keating and Green Thomas Daw are both local councillors on North Somerset Council.