'Parties need to convince Wales they have solutions to cost of living crisis'

The insight into what matters most to voters, so close to the election, will be pored over by Wales' political parties.

In a sense the main findings are not a surprise.

When colleagues and I have spoken to voters over the past three years or so, the rising cost of everyday essentials such as food and transport have come up time and time again.

This poll adds scientific clout to our anecdotal observations.

The challenge for Welsh political parties is to convince voters that they have solutions to the cost of living crisis.

The major economic levers rest with the UK government at Westminster rather than the Welsh government in Cardiff Bay after all.

None of the parties have yet published their manifesto for 2026, but we have some idea of how they would try to make Wales better off.

It partly revolves around the sorts of job we do.

Labour First Minister Eluned Morgan is making a big push for high quality jobs to get the economy going – think nuclear power stations at Wylfa and the growth of AI.

Plaid Cymru would bring back a Welsh Development Agency to help Welsh businesses to grow.

The Conservatives have pledged to knock a penny off income tax and scrap business rates for small firms.

The Liberal Democrats focused on green jobs in their 2024 General Election as, not surprisingly, did the Greens.

At the other end of the fossil fuel scale, Reform has talked about "re-industrialising" Wales including re-opening blast furnaces at steelworks and coal mines.

It is also no surprise to see the NHS in the top three of voters' concerns.

It is likely to feature heavily in those election manifestos and it is also fraught with political risk.

Bringing down waiting times is Morgan's top priority and those waits have just fallen to their lowest level in almost three years.

But they are still high at just under 741,000 patient pathways.

There is a substantial risk for Labour that it will not hit its latest target of reducing overall waits to 600,000 by the end of March.

If it does not, expect opposition parties to seize on it.

Even if it does, those waiting lists would still be huge and they will have accumulated on Labour's watch.

It will not be an easy inheritance if a different party wins in May with long waiting lists - albeit ones that are coming down – and according to the poll, more than half of people in Wales believe that the NHS is getting worse.

Opposition parties are keen to tell you that voters want change.

Those same voters expect it to come quickly, especially on something like the Welsh NHS.

It is going to be fascinating to see how immigration plays into this election even though immigration policy is decided by the UK government at Westminster, not the Senedd in Cardiff Bay.

Morgan and Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth have previously made the case that certain sectors in Wales such as tourism and health and social care, need more not fewer people, and some of whom might be migrants.

This poll suggests that no age group in Wales thinks that the nation needs more migrants.

What specific Welsh policy there is, is already a political battleground.

Both Reform and the Conservatives would scrap the Welsh Labour government's Nation of Sanctuary policy, which helps refugees and asylum seekers.

And we have already seen immigration in Welsh electoral action.

Plaid Cymru sources maintain that one of the reasons for its by-election win in Caerphilly last October was voters' anger at Reform's approach to immigration.

A clash on immigration that put Reform candidate Llyr Powell on the backfoot was the stand-out moment of a pre-election BBC debate.

But Plaid has not had it all its own way.

Ap Iorwerth has faced criticism from the Conservatives and Reform for claiming, during a BBC interview, that there was no such thing as illegal immigration.

Expect to hear independence come up during this campaign.

Probably, and ironically, not so much from Plaid Cymru which wants it - but not just yet.

Labour, Conservatives, Reform and the Lib Dems will bring it up however, keen to alert voters to what they see as the risks and dangers of Plaid's ultimate goal.

Will the warnings work, or have people backing Plaid already weighed up the pros and cons?

The poll suggests that a desire for independence is not necessarily a burning issue for the majority of voters in Wales at the moment.

And finally, fascinating though this poll is, we are now tantalisingly close to the one that really matters: Election day itself on 7 May.

Savanta surveyed 2,086 adults between 29 January and 6 February 2026 on behalf of BBC Wales. A similar poll has been carried out on behalf of BBC Scotland.