The Greens, riding high on their Gorton and Denton by-election victory, have put significant effort into this campaign — with MPs and leader Zack Polanski arriving to knock on doors.
Coggins said that Labour have just put “a new singer playing the same song” with their leadership switch-up, and argues that voters are skeptical to trust Burnham before he has a record on delivery.
About the Thursday contest, Coggins said the Greens hope to make it into the second round with Labour. “We find a lot of people don’t know about the SV, and once they understand that they can use their first vote to vote for what they really want, they ask for a poster too,” she added.
University of Manchester academic Robert Ford said there’s been “much less attention and activity” in the contest compared to either the Makerfield contest or the Gorton and Denton by-election earlier this year. He suggested that polling showing Labour ahead could have played a part: “What may have happened is that all the parties have pretty much concluded that this is a done deal.”
When will we know the winner?
Unlike general elections, the count for this contest won’t take place overnight but instead on Friday in daylight hours.
Turnout tends to be low for mayoral contests (the 2024 vote saw just 32 percent show up, while the 2021 figure wasn’t much better at 34.7 percent) and the contest is the only one on the ballot. That could further reduce the number of voters heading to polling stations.
The redistribution of second preference votes could slightly delay a declaration time, depending on whether the final result is closer than polls predict.
A winner isn’t expected before 2 p.m. at the earliest, though the final result could be declared well into Friday evening.