Labour activists on the doorstep are “fighting this idea of, ‘We’ll give someone else a go,’” said Carwyn Jones, a giant of Welsh politics who served as Labour first minister from 2009 to 2018. “It’s very difficult.”

Leighton Andrews, who served as Jones’ education minister, described the party’s mood as “gloomy and resigned.”

Welsh Labour did not respond to a request to interview one of its candidates for this story.

Governing coalitions are essential here, given Wales’ proportional voting system. If Plaid Cymru places first, they will have a strong chance of leading a government here for the first time, possibly with support from other parties. Labour has previously relied on support from Plaid to govern, and could be called on in defeat to return the favor.

Meanwhile, most parties have already vowed not to work with Reform, making it unlikely it will enter power. But for a party founded only in 2018, becoming the largest or second-largest seat-winner would be seismic.

“All the signs are that this is going to be a political revolution in Wales,” said Laura McAllister, a politics professor at Cardiff University.

As Welsh as this story is, many elements will be familiar across the West.

“What we’re seeing in Wales is really a reflection of other areas of the country and, it could be argued, many other different countries across the world,” said Joe Twyman, one of the U.K.’s top pollsters and co-founder of Deltapoll, a public opinion consultancy.

Decades of “dissatisfaction, distrust and disapproval” were amplified by the financial crisis, “supercharged by Covid” and worsened by inflation-spiking wars in Ukraine and Iran, he said, fomenting a worldwide anger against incumbent leaders.

Mines, choirs and rugby

For generations, two colors defined life here in the South Wales Valleys: the black coal beneath the hills that helped power the industrial world and the deep Labour red that dominated politics above it. The party was woven into daily life in these hilltop communities, as Welsh as the mines and ironworks, the chapels and libraries, the male-voice choirs and rugby.

Declining demand and cheap imports meant most mines had closed by the 1990s, devastating an economy built around them. Some miners moved into nearby factories run by the likes of Hoover, Burberry, Ford and Panasonic. Most of those have now closed, too.

The service industry and public sector still provide jobs, and there has been hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of redevelopment. But nothing has replaced the void left by mining, which, though dangerous and poorly paid, galvanized those who descended into the earth with working-class pride and purpose.

With the mines went many of the working men’s clubs that forged these communities. Today, the same streets are dotted with vape stores and nail bars.

“When I was a kid, it was a nice area to live in, but now the town has gone downhill,” said Sam Lewis, 37, a mother of two who works as a carer for her own mother in Merthyr. Her family all used to vote Labour. Asked who she will support this week, she barely let the question finish.