Prof Andrew Russell
University of Liverpool

Only the prime minister and the mayor of London have more power in English politics than the mayor of Greater Manchester.

Labour's candidate to replace Andy Burnham is the current leader of Manchester City Council, Bev Craig.

While Craig is relatively well known in the city, she faces a tougher task in the other nine boroughs of Greater Manchester.

While Labour has often won elections across the city region, the party's level of support has varied.

For instance, at a time when Labour held 95 of 96 council seats on Manchester City Council, eight of the 10 Greater Manchester boroughs voted leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

This may well give hope to Reform UK, for example.

Craig, who has led the city council since 2021, has filled big shoes before. Her predecessor, Sir Richard Leese, was in charge for more than a quarter of a century, taking in an era including Britpop, the 2002 Commonwealth Games and the soaring city skyscape.

Annabel Tiffin
At Manchester's Co-op Live Arena

I’ve certainly watched more interesting events at the Co-op live Arena.

While we await the declaration of the first-choice vote there are just a lot of people standing around looking a bit bored.

There doesn’t even seem to be a lot of counting going on.

But things could be about to get exciting. There are rumours that first declaration will come at 16:00 BST.

So, could we know who the new Mayor of Greater Manchester is then?

Probably not.

All indications are this contest will go to a second round of counting because it’s not expected that any one candidate will get more than 50% of the vote.

Stay with us, this looks likely to be a long one.

In Greater Manchester, the mayor automatically exercises the functions of the police and crime commissioner (PCC) for the region, which is why they can't also be an MP.

The mayor is also responsible for the fire and rescue service and has oversight over local transport plans, responsibility for some skills and adult education and governance of a number of local health commissioning budgets.

They are paid an annual salary of £118,267, which is higher than other regional mayors owing to the PCC responsibilities.

We've just reported on the turnout being the lowest since Andy Burnham became the first elected Greater Manchester Mayor in 2017. The role of an elected mayor of the Greater Manchester region was announced in 2014 by then Chancellor George Osborne.

The announcement came two years after people in the city of Manchester voted against having an elected mayor, with the decision to have a regional or metropolitan mayor being directly negotiated between the government and the 10 Greater Manchester councils.

The role was ultimately created as part of a law passed in 2016, one of a number of big pieces of devolution legislation brought in by the Conservatives after taking power in 2010.

Andy Burnham, who left Parliament to stand for the role, was chosen as Labour's candidate for the first mayoral election in 2017 and won, taking 63.4% of the vote.

He went on to fight and win two more mayoral election contests - in 2021 and 2024. He increased his vote to 67.3% in 2021, and polled 63.4% in 2024.

Kevin Fitzpatrick
Political reporter for Greater Manchester

Liberal Democrat candidate, Richard Kilpatrick, says he doesn't think he's won but is happy with the campaign he ran. The Manchester city councillor doesn’t expect to be in the top two, should the contest go to a second round of voting.

"Where we have a strong base, where we have strong local champions and campaigners in our communities, it's very clear that we've done really well in those areas," he says.

"Affordability was the number-one issue that came across to us on the doorstep, so we need to make sure that we, regardless of the result of this election, that we're there leading the charge and holding the next mayor to account.”

Why was the turnout so low?published at 14:50 BST

14:50 BST

Rowan Bridge
North of England reporter at Manchester's Co-op Live arena

There are any number of factors that could have been in play.

First, voter fatigue may have set in. For some places - Gorton and Denton, the Makerfield constituency - it’s the third time they’ve been asked to vote this year when you add in May’s local elections too.

There is also the question of how much people were aware - or cared - about the election itself. Some of the mayors powers, like strategic planning, aren’t the sort of areas Joe and Jane Average get excited about.

If you don’t really care about, or understand, the issues in hand, why bother?

And it could be that people just didn’t find the candidates inspiring. None of them had the profile and name recognition of Andy Burnham when he first ran for the job, nor the sort of profile he built in the role.

This year's turnout is the lowest of the four Greater Manchester mayoral elections since the role of an elected mayor for the region was created.

The second lowest came in 2017's election, when the turnout was 29%, and when Andy Burnham voted in as mayor for the first time.

We’ve just got the figures through for the number of people who turned out to vote in the election.

There were 538,659 verified ballots cast across Greater Manchester, that's out of 2,142,779 eligible to take part.

That works out at just over one in four people voting - 25.14%.

The last mayoral election in 2024 had a turnout of almost one in three - 32.05%. So turnout is down by about seven percentage points.

Image source, get

Whoever is elected today will only be the second person to have been voted in as the mayor of Greater Manchester.

Andy Burnham was voted in as mayor in 2017, and then again in 2021 and 2024.

The role was announced in 2014 as part of the then Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition government, which said it would help to "create a Northern Powerhouse to maximise the economic potential of the north".

Before Burnham was elected, the role was held by ex-Labour MP Tony Lloyd, who was appointed to the job on an interim basis after it was first created in 2015.

Residents across Greater Manchester were eligible to vote in the election for the new mayor of the city region.

This includes people living in all 10 boroughs - Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan.

Individuals had to be registered to vote as a local government elector in one of the 10 areas and be 18 or over on the day of the election.

Image source, Reform UK

Sian Astley, Reform UK: Astley represents the Baguley ward on the Manchester City Council and said she had been a Labour voter in the past, adding that "the vice-like grip the party has held over Manchester has been evident for decades".

Image source, Green Party

Geraldine Coggins, Green Party: Coggins, a councillor for Trafford since 2018, is a published academic with a background in leadership, public finance and strategic decision-making. She has pledged to improve transport, housing and choose "people and planet over profits".

Image source, Labour Party

Bev Craig, Labour: As well as leading Manchester City Council, Craig is the deputy mayor for economy, business and inclusive growth on the region's combined authority. She said Greater Manchester changed her life, adding "I've spent my career trying to give something back".

Image source, Trafford Conservatives

Phil Eckersley, Conservative: Eckersley currently represents Bowdon ward on Trafford Council, where he is his party's deputy leader and shadow executive member for health and care.

Marcus Farmer, Independent: Farmer is standing in his third Greater Manchester mayoral election. The businessman came sixth out of nine candidates in 2021, receiving just under 1% of the vote with 6,448 votes.

Image source, Liberal Democrats

Richard Kilpatrick, Liberal Democrats: Kilpatrick, a former teacher who has been a councillor in the Didsbury area since 2018, has pledged to "tackle the cost of living crisis, improve public services and deliver desperately needed housing for the region".

Image source, Restore Britain

Marlon West, Restore Britain: A former mental health nurse, West became a prominent activist on the issue of child grooming gangs after his daughter, Scarlett, was targeted and raped, and the pair published a book on their experiences.

Image source, Reuters

The Greater Manchester mayoral election was triggered by the resignation of Andy Burnham after his victory in the Makerfield by-election last month.

The victory gave him a seat in the House of Commons, which he used to become prime minister following Keir Starmer's resignation.

By law, an MP cannot sit in the Commons and hold a metropolitan mayor role that has powers over local policing.

This means Burnham had to stand down after being elected in Makerfield in June.

Burnham became the city region's first directly elected mayor in 2017 and went on to secure two further terms in office.

Michaela Howard
North of England senior producer

Verification has finished here for Manchester City council’s count but they are waiting for the other boroughs to finish theirs.

Those here to count the votes, are prepared for the long haul as the result isn’t expected until this afternoon. The counters appear to be experience at this – they are prepared for the down time.

Some knitting has been out, the fresh pages of a book have been turned and e-readers are being used to pass the time.

One table has a selection of bags of sweets across the front, some packets already opened and tucked into.

Rowan Bridge
North of England reporter at Manchester's Co-op Live arena

The last act to take to the stage at Co-op Live was Def Leppard. I suspect they had a slightly more raucous welcome than the hubbub of activity currently taking place on the arena floor.

Though the result today will have far greater impact and significance to people’s lives in Greater Manchester than Joe Elliot’s vocals. Scores of counters are due to start counting thousands of ballots cast in Manchester and allocating the first preference votes to the candidates standing.

The same process is taking place in the nine other boroughs which make up Greater Manchester. Once they’ve all finished counting we’ll know if anyone has won outright or if it’ll go to a run off between the top two candidates.

Milling around on the floor are representatives of some of the parties standing. At the moment Labour seem to have more smiles on their faces than the Greens. Make of that what you will.

Image source, Christopher Furlong / Pool via AFP

Shortly after the polls closed last night, Andy Burnham announced he would be giving greater powers to mayors across England as part of his ambition to distribute power out of Whitehall.

The Prime Minister will give all mayors of city regions in England a share of income tax revenue for the first time, saying he would "make good" on his pledge to "bring power home" to "every postcode in the country".

He will also allow English strategic authorities to keep some cash from business rates collected in their areas, and gain greater control over services such as housing, transport, skills.

The government has not yet decided the exact portion of taxes mayors will get, with more details to be announced when Chancellor John Healey delivers his first budget in the autumn.

Opposition parties said the plans lacked detail and could lead to areas with weaker economies losing out on funding.

• Read more about the announcement in our news story

Kevin Fitzpatrick
Political reporter for Greater Manchester

Image source, EPA

Housing, growing local economies and public transport have been among the big themes dominating this mayoral campaign, with a key question for candidates being whether to continue the schemes launched by Burnham.

Labour is promising to extend the free bus pass (available for 16 to 18-year-olds) to passengers aged 11 to 18, with the Greens and Liberal Democrats saying they’d make it free up to the age of 22. But the Conservatives intend to review free travel offers to ensure they’re affordable.

On housing, Labour’s candidate is committing to 50,000 new homes over 15 years while the Greens say it’d be 20,000 over 10. Reform UK’s candidate says the issue isn’t a housing shortage, it’s too much immigration.

One thing they all agree on though is a greater focus on the outer towns of the city region, with candidates proposing various schemes aimed at breathing life into struggling high streets

Rowan Bridge
North of England reporter at Manchester's Co-op Live arena

Image source, BBC/Rowan Bridge

The verification of ballot papers is under way. That’s to check things like the number of people who’ve voted and to weed out spoilt ballot papers.

It’s the stage before the votes themselves are counted to see who will fill Andy Burnham’s shoes - and office - now that he’s swapped the mayor’s Oxford Road address for Downing Street.

The final result will be announced here at Co-op Live, the cavernous concert area.

The election is significant for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it will decide who takes up the powers that come with the office, and who will be the public face and cheerleader for the city-region.

But it’s also the largest electoral test for Labour since their disastrous results in the May local elections which ultimately cost Keir Starmer his role as prime minister, and led to the last mayor taking his job.

During those local elections in Greater Manchester, Labour lost seats to the Greens and Reform. Andy Burnham may have been PM for less than two weeks, but this is the first electoral test for his leadership, and one that will be watched closely.

If Labour lose, it will be in Burnham’s back yard and will no doubt raise questions - however premature - about how far replacing the leader can win back disaffected voters.

If Labour beat Reform UK, it will be Nigel Farage who may face questions about if Reform’s surge in the polls can be maintained.

And where might the Greens finish? After winning the Gorton and Denton by-election can they maintain the momentum? We’ll know the answers to all these questions by the end of today.

Could change in voting system benefit Labour?published at 10:38 BST

10:38 BST

Ian Shoesmith
North West

As we mentioned in our previous post, voters in the Greater Manchester mayoral election were asked to select both a first and second choice of candidate.

This is very different from most elections in England, which use the first past the post (FPTP) system, where the candidate with the highest number of votes is elected.

The supplementary vote (SV) system was used in the first two mayoral elections in Greater Manchester in 2017 and 2021, but was scrapped by the last Conservative government in favour of FPTP system ahead of the 2024 election in which Andy Burnham won a third term.

The current Labour government brought it back ahead of Thursday's election.

Prof Jonathan Tonge from the University of Liverpool thinks Labour's candidate Bev Craig could benefit from this change.

He says Labour could pick up second preference votes from the Greens and Lib Dems, while Reform UK could be less likely to see Restore voters put them as second preference due to "bad blood" between their leaders.

Image source, Getty Images

The voting system for this by-election is slightly different to what many of us are used to from elections past - it's called the supplementary vote (SV) system.

Under the SV system, voters get to have a first and second choice.

If no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote after first preference votes are counted, the top two candidates will go into a run-off, in which second preference votes from the eliminated candidates are counted.

It was previously used in the Greater Manchester mayoral contests in 2017 and 2021, but was ditched by the previous Conservative government ahead of the vote in 2024, when first past the post was used instead.

Seven candidates were on the ballot to be the next mayor of Greater Manchester - here's a list (in alphabetical order, by surname):

• Sian Astley, Reform UK
• Geraldine Coggins, Green Party
• Bev Craig, Labour
• Phil Eckersley, Conservative
• Marcus Farmer, Independent
• Richard Kilpatrick, Liberal Democrats
• Marlon West, Restore Britain