Two separate YouGov polling findings, circulating widely on social media this week, contain data that could fundamentally challenge the conventional assumptions underlying British politics – about where support for the Green Party actually sits, about the dynamics of tactical voting, and about the degree to which the age gap in turnout is quietly distorting our democracy.
Taken individually, each finding is striking. Taken together, they point to a political system increasingly out of alignment with the preferences of the majority of working-age adults.
Finding one: the Greens are winning under-65s
The first piece of data, drawn from a YouGov survey conducted on 15 and 16 February 2026, concerns voting intention broken down by age. The headline figure is startling: among voters under 65, the Green Party is leading outright.
The numbers among under-65s show Reform UK and Labour tied on 22% and 21% respectively, with the Greens on 20%, the Liberal Democrats on 15%, the Conservatives on 14% and others on 8%. That means the Greens are the single largest party – or joint largest, within margin of error – among the vast majority of the working-age population.
The picture changes dramatically among voters aged 65 and over. In that demographic, Reform surges to 33%, with Labour on 26%, the Conservatives on 14%, the Liberal Democrats on 13%, the Greens on just 3% and others on 11%.
The contrast is stark. Among younger and working-age Britain, the Greens are competitive for first place. Among pensioners, they are a fringe party. The combined national polling figures – which tend to show Reform in a commanding lead – reflect not just who people would vote for, but which age groups actually turn out in large numbers. And older voters consistently vote at higher rates than younger ones.
As political commentator Philip Proudfoot observed when sharing the data: older voters appear to be exerting an outsized influence on political outcomes relative to their actual share of considered opinion across the broader population.
Finding two: Greens beat Reform 42-27 in a head-to-head
The second piece of data, shared by journalist Owen Jones and drawn from a YouGov survey conducted 10-12 February 2026, concerns tactical voting – and it contains what may be the most surprising single number in recent British political polling.
The survey asked voters a hypothetical question: if only two parties had a realistic chance of winning in your constituency, how would you vote in a series of different head-to-head matchups? The results across all scenarios were broadly predictable – except for one.
When voters were asked to choose between the Greens and Reform UK in a straight fight, 42% said they would back the Greens, with 27% for Reform. That is not a narrow lead. That is a fifteen-point margin – and it dramatically outperforms the Green Party’s headline voting intention figures of around 12-14% nationally.
The other head-to-head results showed the Liberal Democrats performing consistently well across multiple matchups: 41% against Reform’s 29%, 34% against the Conservatives, 29% against Labour, and 26% against the Greens in a Lib Dem vs Green contest. Labour leads Reform 35-31 in a straight fight, and the Conservatives lead Reform 31-24 – figures that will raise eyebrows given how much attention the Conservatives-versus-Reform dynamic has received.
But the Green-Reform figure stands apart. It suggests that when tactical considerations are stripped away – when voters are asked simply who they would prefer if only those two parties could win – the Greens attract support from far beyond their current base. Voters who would normally back Labour, the Liberal Democrats or even in some cases the Conservatives appear willing to rally behind the Greens when presented with a binary choice against Farage’s party.
What this means for the Greens’ ceiling
For years, one of the central constraints on Green Party growth under first-past-the-post has been the perception problem: voters who sympathise with the Greens, and might genuinely prefer them to other parties, instead vote tactically for whichever larger party is best placed to beat the Conservatives – or more recently, to beat Reform.
The YouGov tactical voting data suggests that when that viability concern is removed, Green support rises dramatically. A party polling around 12-14% in standard voting intention surveys attracts 42% support in a direct contest against the party it is most ideologically opposed to. The gap between those two numbers – somewhere around 28-30 percentage points – represents what might be called the Greens’ “suppressed vote”: support that exists, but is being held back by strategic calculations under first-past-the-post.
This is not merely a theoretical observation. The Greens’ stunning by-election victory in Gorton and Denton in February – the party’s first ever parliamentary by-election win – demonstrated precisely this dynamic in action. Once the Greens were established as the credible anti-Reform option in that constituency, voters across the left coalesced around them. Labour finished third. The result was described as historic, and it was – but the polling data suggests it may also be a preview of what becomes possible when the Greens’ viability argument is settled elsewhere.
The turnout gap and what it hides
The under-65 voting intention data raises a question that British politics has been grappling with for years but rarely confronts directly: to what extent do election results actually reflect what the majority of British adults want?
The figures show that among voters under 65 – a group that constitutes the large majority of the adult population – the political landscape looks very different from the one that older turnout patterns tend to produce. Reform’s commanding position in headline polls is heavily driven by its dominance among the over-65s, where it leads on 33%. Among the under-65s, it is tied for first with Labour and one point ahead of the Greens.
If turnout among younger and working-age voters were to rise significantly – either through cultural shifts, specific mobilisation efforts, or changes to the voting system – the political map would look considerably different. Parties that currently appear fringe or protest would become genuinely competitive. Parties that currently dominate because of their appeal to older high-turnout voters would see their margins compressed.
This is not an abstract electoral science point. It has direct implications for how parties campaign, where they target resources, and – most fundamentally – whether the outcomes of British elections under the current system can genuinely be said to represent the views of the population as a whole.
The bigger picture ahead of May
Both sets of findings take on additional significance in the context of the May 7 local elections. The Greens are widely expected to make significant gains – particularly in London, where councils including Hackney, Islington and Newham have been identified as potential targets – and the tactical voting data suggests that in any ward or council where the Greens establish themselves as a credible force, their support could surge well beyond what headline polling suggests.
For Reform, the tactical voting figures represent a genuine challenge to the narrative of unstoppable momentum. The party leads in headline polls. It is expected to gain large numbers of seats in May. But in a straight contest against its most ideologically opposed rival, it loses by fifteen points. That suggests a ceiling – a point at which anti-Reform tactical consolidation kicks in and limits further gains.
For Labour, the under-65 data is a sobering read. The party that was meant to be the natural home of working-age progressive Britain is tied for first in that demographic – with Reform. Among the young especially, the drift to the Greens is real, sustained and accelerating.
Whether the current electoral system allows any of this to translate into seats – or whether first-past-the-post continues to suppress the Green vote and amplify the turnout advantage of older Reform and Conservative supporters – is a question that, increasingly, goes to the heart of whether British democracy is producing outcomes that genuinely reflect British opinion.
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