The Polls
The Analysis
YouGov puts Reform at 25%. Ipsos shows 28%. Farage screams suppression. He's looking in the wrong place. The real fix is simpler: BPC pollsters won't include Restore Britain despite 7% national support documented in Find Out Now's 3,029-person survey on 25 February.
Two-thirds of Reform members view Lowe positively according to Hope Not Hate polling of 629 members from 29 January to 16 February. When your own voters prefer the rival, you don't have a ceiling problem. You have a credibility problem.
Reform's Worcestershire council slapped residents with a 9% tax rise after Farage campaigned on cuts. He called it "virtually bankrupt" on 13 March and admitted he wished Reform hadn't bothered. The council needed £59.9m in emergency bailouts. Voters clock that gap between promise and delivery. Farage blames YouGov instead of fixing his governance failures.
The Best PM numbers tell the real story. Farage leads at 26.4% in Find Out Now's 18 March poll. Starmer limps in at 16.3%. But Lowe scores 13.3% after just 34 days leading Restore. He's already beating the Lib Dem leader. That's Reform voters hunting for competence over Cameo scandals.
The Numbers
The Tracker
When pollsters add Restore, it unlocks visibility in official averages, media commentary, and betting markets.
The Outlook
May's council elections hit on 7 May across 136 English authorities with 5,000 seats contested. Restore Britain fields dozens of candidates. JL Partners has Reform at 31%. The gap between pollsters screams volatility, not strength.
Watch whether BPC firms add Restore to published tables before election day. They won't. That structural blackout means voters walk into booths without data on how the right splits. First past the post crushes divided votes. Farage needs 35% to win seats outright. At 27% with 7% bleeding to Restore, he's gifting Labour victories through split tickets.
Senedd elections follow on 8 May. Reform won its first Welsh councillor in Pembrokeshire on 18 March when Scott Thorley took 32.7% of votes. The same week, Farage's Welsh Cameo videos mocking "foreign speakers" for £106 went viral. Welsh voters now pick between Reform's transatlantic freak show and Restore's untainted slate.
The line that matters is 30%. Fall below it and stay there through May, and Reform's seat haul collapses regardless of headlines. Lowe doesn't need to win. He just needs to bleed Farage enough that vote-splitting does the killing. The math says he's already succeeding.