Mark Who? Eluned Who? and Vaughan Who?

As an Independista and someone who leans heavily to Plaid Cymru I take no comfort in the perceived lack of awareness of the Welsh electorate when questioned on the names of the three"Welsh" Labour candidates have no opinion on who to back or worse who they are.

The BBC claim that

"Coffee mornings, student unions, eating grapes in a volunteer-run garden: the places you end up when following three would-be first ministers.I've been travelling around filming interviews for Wales Today with the Welsh Labour leadership candidates.They're familiar figures to anyone interested in Welsh politics, but not to most of the public.In fact, the best evidence we have suggests Vaughan Gething, Mark Drakeford and Eluned Morgan are virtually anonymous".

All three are ministers, with the ability to affect our daily lives. Soon, one will win a contest that puts eve


All three are ministers, with the ability to affect our daily lives. Soon, one will win a contest that puts even more power in their hands.
And yet it would appear that "the majority of people have little or no idea who they are", says Professor Roger Awan-Scully, Wales' top expert on opinion polls.
He's been working with YouGov to ask what people think of these potential leaders.
They've put the question in various ways, but there's only one winner so far: don't know.
When invited to rate and rank the candidates, most people prefer not to answer. And the high percentage of "don't knows" is a pretty good indicator that people couldn't even identify the candidates, says Prof Awan-Scully.
In their most recent poll for ITV Wales, fewer than a quarter of respondents picked a favourite. The findings were not much better when only Labour supporters were asked.
Early polls in March and July - before the campaign proper started - had similar results.
"Basically the campaign has done nothing significant to improve visibility," Prof Awan-Scully says.
Professor Awan-Scully expanded his results in a recent article for the New Statesman.

"Two things stand out from the results in all these polls. The first is that most people in Wales have little or no idea who any of the candidates to be the next First Minister actually are. In the latest poll, a clear majority of respondents (including fully 60 per cent of all Labour supporters) opted for Don’t Know when asked to pick the best First Minister candidate; majorities also opt for Don’t Know when they were asked to rate each of the candidates individually on the 0-10 scale.
There is a second thing that stands out from the polling figures, though. Across all three polls, and both question formats, Drakeford scores poorly with those people who can offer a view on the leadership candidates. In the latest poll he averages only 4.0 out of 10, compared to 4.4 for Gething and 4.5 for Morgan. When selecting the best single candidate, 9 percent chose Morgan, 8 per cent Gething, and only 5 percent Drakeford. In short – not only do most Welsh people have little idea who their likely next First Minister is, but most of those who do have some idea aren’t impressed by him. The party members who will be voting soon may start to question whether Mark Drakeford as leader would be an electoral asset for his party".

Maybe there's something in this Tweet.

Ifan Morgan Jones‏ @ifanmjFollowFollow @ifanmj
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I had a theory based on Roger Scully's previous polls that Welsh voters, faced with a list of unfamiliar politicians' names, will vote for the Welshest sounding one. Seems to be borne out once again.

1:47 AM - 6 Nov 2018

One of the challenges all the Parties in Wales is how do they communicate with an electorate who seem not to be connected to mainstream politics ?

For most readers of this Blog would know who many of the senior politicians not only in Wales but in the rest of the UK are.

Indeed there may be a number of readers outside Wales who may be taking an interest and have more knowledge of the average Welsh voter.

I have been at a loss to how Plaid haven't even approached the level of support for the SNP even before the surge after the Scottish Independence referendum.

Plaid have a new leader who has promised to change around the parties recent fortunes if the evidence of the lack of knowledge of his rival leadership contenders is anything to go by its a very uphill task.