Reform UK has three prime electoral opportunities today as the Farage’s party looks to translate dominant polling into electoral results and create a fresh headache for Kemi Badenoch.

Council by-elections are due in East Anglia, a Tory heartland where Reform is hoovering up right wing support.

Farage’s party has been dominant in recent UK wide polling with four pollsters (YouGov, TechneUK, More In Common and Find Out Now) putting them ahead of the establishment parties.

But the anti-immigration party has only won 11 of 198 seats up for grabs since the General Election in July 2024, something critics have said is evidence Reform may shout the loudest but aren’t winning when it matters.

That said, Reform has recorded some impressive victories, most notably Trevethin & Penygarn (Torfaen) in south Wales, a Labour stronghold but one which went turquoise after Starmer’s party’s vote share crashed 50 per cent.

While polling is unavailable for individual council wards, we can look at polling for the wider constituency the ward falls in, and it's good news for Reform.

Poll finds Farage is the most popular leader in WalesReform

Reform’s greatest chance comes in the ward of Bedingfield in Norfolk.

According to the Nowcast model, which aggregates recent UK wide polling and weights it for historic accuracy and recency, the wider constituency of South West Norfolk is projected to flip turquoise in a huge swing.

The Tory heartland had elected a Conservative MP at every election since 1964 (including Liz Truss since 2010), but Labour’s Terry Jermy narrowly took the seat in 2024 by 640 votes.

But Jermy is now projected to lose his seat to Reform with Farage’s party set to take 35 per cent of the vote (up 12.4) while the Tories and Labour are down 2.6 and 9.7 per cent respectively.

South West Norfolk projection

Another prime opportunity for Reform comes in the eastern suburbs of Ipswich.

The Nowcast model is projecting the wider seat of Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, which has been Tory since its creation in 1997 (barring former MP Dan Poulter’s defection to Labour), to go to Reform.

Conservative Patrick Spencer would be ousted as Reform take 29.6 per cent of the vote compared to the Tories 26.9 per cent.

However, as the ward is in the suburbs of Ipswich- a Labour city- and not the countryside, it may be a tougher ask than the model suggests.

The Tories still won the ward last time out in 2023, suggesting a right-wing vote split could be on the cards.

Suffolk Coastal projection

Rounding out Reform’s triple electoral threat is the ward of Woodbridge near the Suffolk coast.

Another Tory heartland, Woodbridge’s wider seat of Suffolk Coastal has been Conservative since its creation in 1983, electing Therese Coffey since 2010.

Labour won the seat for the first time in 2024 as Jenny Riddel-Carpenter triumphed by 1,070 votes.

But current polling shows the seat is currently on a knife edge with the Conservatives, Reform and Labour neck and neck on 27, 26 and 23 per cent projected vote share respectively.

It is another seat where Reform and the Tories could split the right-wing vote and allow Labour to scoop a victory, despite widespread unpopularity.

Central Suffolk and North Ipswich projection

Elsewhere, there are elections due for the ward of Vincent Square in Westminster and Eamont and Shap in Westmorland and Furness.

Reform has a candidate in Westminster, but central London is not Reform territory and the Nowcast model is projecting the wider seat of Cities of London and Westminster to go to the Tories with Reform a distant third.

Farage’s party failed to stand a candidate in the Westmorland and Furness ward, though the area is one of the safest Liberal Democrat areas in the country so it would have been tough to oust the incumbent Lib Dem.

It comes as a clear winner continues to emerge from the 198 council elections that have taken place since the election.

The Conservatives, despite being leaderless for much of the period, have won 53 of the seats, a net gain of 24 seats.

Labour has suffered a net loss of 33 seats while Reform have gained 11, a modest return for such dominant UK wide polling.

Today’s elections represent a prime opportunity for Reform to improve on that, however.

Local elections are due in May, though Labour has granted permission for nine authorities to postpone elections as a shakeup of local government takes place.

The next General Election is due in 2029, but Reform is campaigning hard in recently jailed Mike Amesbury’s seat of Runcorn and Helsby where a by-election is highly likely.