Voters in Greater Manchester go to the polls on Thursday to choose a successor to Andy Burnham, who stepped down as mayor after becoming prime minister, triggering the largest by-election in British history. Labour's Bev Craig, leader of Manchester City Council since 2021 and a close ally of Burnham, is heavily favoured to win against Reform's Sian Astley, with the contest widely seen as an early electoral test of Burnham's premiership and a beneficiary of his continuing popularity in the region.

Polling from More in Common puts Craig ahead 65 to 35 per cent in a second round, the first time a Greater Manchester mayoral race has gone beyond round one under the supplementary vote system, as she is not expected to reach 50 per cent outright. Craig, 41 and Belfast-born, is the council's first female and first LGBTQ+ leader and has framed her campaign around continuity with Burnham's approach while insisting she is "her own person," proposing policies such as extending free bus passes to 11- to 16-year-olds. Her likely win comes despite Labour losing 108 seats across the region in May's local elections, which she attributes to national rather than local factors, and academics suggest she stands to gain from a "Burnham bounce" in Labour's national standing.