Bev Craig was elected Mayor of Greater Manchester on 30 July 2026, taking 251,449 first preferences, 47.1% of the ballots cast, with the declaration made the following day1. Craig led the first count by 26 points and still fell short of half the vote. That sent the contest to a second round, the first in the mayoralty's history. Second preferences lifted her to 309,525, or 66.3%, against Sian Astley of Reform UK on 157,178 (33.7%).
Craig, standing for Labour and Co-operative, replaces Andy Burnham, who forfeited the office on entering the Commons at Makerfield and Downing Street a month later. Paul Dennett, the deputy named in statute to step in when a mayor leaves mid-term, ran the combined authority in the gap. Craig holds the mayoralty only to the scheduled 2028 election, so this fills a vacancy rather than opening a term.
Of 169,949 votes cast for the five eliminated candidates, 103,326 carried a usable second preference and 66,623 did not. Craig picked up 58,076 of those, Astley 45,250. Behind the top two, the Green Party came third on 64,968, Restore Britain took 46,289 and beat the Conservative Party into fifth on 41,021, with the Liberal Democrats on 14,702 and an independent on 2,9692. Rupert Lowe's party has now finished ahead of the Conservatives in a mayoral contest at its first attempt.
Reform's 21.0% first-preference share sits two to three points under its national polling, and the tempting reading is that the Burnham effect has reached the ground. Turnout undercuts that. Only 538,659 of 2,142,779 electors voted, 25.1%, down from 32% in 2024 and the lowest the mayoralty has recorded3. Three in four electors in Labour's strongest English city-region stayed at home, so the result measures machine strength in Greater Manchester rather than national mood. The 21.0% will be quoted as though it measured both.
