At the 2005 election the seat was Liberal Democrat target number 18, and Conservative target number 50; it had been frequently described in the media as a "three-way marginal", and all parties fought hard for the constituency. The seat was taken by Liberal Democrat Stephen Williams with a large majority, thought to have been aided by the large student electorate, hostile to Labour's top-up fees policy. This Liberal Democrat success was similar to those in other seats with a large student population, such as Cambridge, Manchester Withington, Leeds North West and Cardiff Central. In the 2010 election, Stephen Williams held the seat with an increased majority. In the 2015 general election, the Lib Dem vote fell by 29.2%; Williams came a distant third behind the winning Labour candidate Thangam Debbonaire and more than 5,000 votes behind the Green Party candidate, who achieved the greatest increase in the Green vote (+23%) in any seat that election. In 2017 Bristol West had the biggest swing to Labour in the country. The 52.1% majority was also the largest in the seat since 1931.