Fewer than 6,000 people live in Trevethin and Penygarn, a gritty, deindustrialized district amid the hills and valleys of South Wales, and not many expected drama when a vote was called to elect a member of the local municipality, one of the lowest tiers of British government.
But as one candidate, Stuart Keyte, a member of the populist anti-immigration party Reform U.K., campaigned outside Trevethin’s small supermarket on Wednesday, a volley of eggs rained down on him from behind a van parked nearby.
Sidestepping quickly, Mr. Keyte, who happens to be a former member of Britain’s elite Parachute Regiment, avoided the worst of the barrage from the unknown assailant, then drew on his military experience. “The closer you get to the target, the more flak you get,” he said as he inspected the egg yolk splattered on his shoes.
He hit his target on Thursday, when he became the first member of Reform U.K., the upstart party led by Nigel Farage, the Brexit campaigner and ally of President Trump, to win an election in Wales.
Turnout was low, as it usually is in municipal elections: just 973 people (less than a quarter of those eligible) voted in the contest for a council seat in Torfaen (pronounced Tor-vai-uhn) municipality, which remains under Labour control and includes Trevethin and Penygarn. Mr. Keyte won 457 votes.
But Reform is riding high in national opinion polls, and Thursday’s victory, and others in municipal elections elsewhere, underscore the threat the party poses to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s governing Labour Party. In last year’s general election Reform, formerly known as the Brexit Party, secured 14 percent of the national vote and won five parliamentary seats. It also finished second in 89 Labour seats.
Reform’s new strategy is to target regions that are struggling economically, campaigning on local issues and exploiting the frustration of voters who feel failed by the main political parties.
Mr. Keyte, 64, said he had knocked on doors every day for the last two weeks but barely mentioned Mr. Farage — his party’s divisive yet effective leader — or immigration.
“I am sure those issues are very important to the locals, it’s not something I’ve discussed with them,” he said, adding that he talked instead of smashed car windows, litter, dog mess and faulty street lighting.
Council members are the backbone of British politics and are often the people who campaign at street level. Nationwide, Reform holds just 72 such seats as of Friday. (Although the party already had three council members in Torfaen, all had been elected for other parties or were independent before defecting to Mr. Farage’s party.)
But Reform thinks it has momentum, and Wales, which voted in favor of Mr. Farage’s marquee policy of Brexit in 2016, is a crucial battleground for the party.
Reform strategists are eyeing next year’s elections for the Welsh Parliament, or Senedd, under a proportional voting system that is much more favorable to small parties than the one used for British general elections.
With Labour running the British government in Westminster, the Senedd in Cardiff and Torfaen Council, some residents have plenty to complain about.
Outside his home, Christopher Jennings, 70, a retired bus driver and former Labour voter, said he would support Reform, criticizing Mr. Starmer’s decision to limit payments to retirees for heating costs.
“I’ve always had it since I was 65, had it every year and all of a sudden I can’t have it anymore,” he said of the tax-free handout, which will now only be available to the very poorest retirees. He added that the government was somehow still finding money to house asylum seekers in hotels.
Community spirit is strong here but the region was battered by the loss of jobs in traditional industries, a process that is still underway at Port Talbot, a large steel making plant 50 miles away.
“After they shut the pits and the steel works, there is nothing here for us now or for the kids,” Mr. Jennings said.
Paul Jones, 42, who runs a business offering pet services including dog walking, said he favors Reform because he wants lower immigration. “People are starting to change their outlook, especially when it comes to Labour. It’s time for change,” Mr. Jones said as he complained about the difficulty of getting doctor appointments.
The center of the nearby town of Pontypool was “dead, finished,” he added.
Some parts of Pontypool certainly look that way. Several pubs, cafes and businesses were shuttered and foliage sprouted from the roof of an elegant but derelict department store building awaiting redevelopment.
Around the corner in the town hall, Anthony Hunt, the Labour leader of the Torfaen municipal council, said the municipality had invested in schools and was the last line of defense during years of budget cuts under the previous Conservative government.
“We do need to listen,” he said. “My fear is that Reform typify a type of politics that doesn’t seek to solve problems — it seeks to make people angry, and I would ask what their policies are both locally and nationally to make things better.”
The campaigning had raised tensions in the area, he argued. Folk in Trevethin “feel that the circus has come to town a little bit, that people have come in from outside,” and that Reform’s campaigners have been “upping the temperature,” he said. Certainly the contest has been full of incident.
David Thomas, a formerly Labour council member who now represents Reform, was the subject of news articles earlier this week after LBC, a radio station, identified him as “DJ Dowster,” reporting that he had posted songs online with misogynistic and offensive lyrics. The Reform party said they were not his creations and that the lyrics were samples taken from other songs.
At Evermore Tattoo Collective in Trevethin, Robby Taylor, 44, said before the vote that he was undecided on whether to vote at all. “I don’t know what’s right for the area,” he said adding that he loved living there, despite a lack of amenities.
It was the resignation of a Labour council member, Sue Malson, that precipitated Thursday’s election.
At the busy charity shop she runs in Trevethin, she described the community as “like a family.” But she resigned because her work as a council member led to attacks on her home and on the horses she keeps, she said.
Ms. Malson described herself as the most outspoken member of the local Labour Party and said she had clashed with Mr. Thomas in council meetings.
Speaking outside Trevethin’s supermarket, David Nutt, 78, a farmer and former miner, said he was unimpressed by Reform. “They say a lot of things people want to hear,” he said, adding that “Farage, himself, is a very dangerous fellow.”
Still, Mr. Nutt, a longstanding Labour supporter, said the party doesn’t “listen to the voters enough,” and planned to vote for an independent candidate.
He named three pubs that had closed over the years. Then, as he lamented the changes he had seen over six decades, a commotion broke out behind him.
A young man in a gray track suit dashed out of the supermarket, pursued by a shop worker, who was just too late to stop him shoplifting. By the time Mr. Nutt looked around to see what was happening, the figure in gray had disappeared around the corner.
