The Evening Standard had a new YouGov London poll today, showing a commanding lead for Sadiq Khan in the mayoral race. First round voting intentions are KHAN 48%, GOLDSMITH 32%, WHITTLE 7%, BERRY 6%, PIDGEON 5%. After reallocating the second preferences of eliminated candidates Sadiq Khan wins by twenty points on the second round. Full tabs are here
The huge Labour lead looks startling, but it is actually broadly in line with YouGov’s national polling. Their last couple of GB polls had Labour and the Conservatives very close in their levels of support, which is the equivalent of a CON=>LAB swing of 3.5% since the general election. Last year Labour outpolled the Conservatives by nine percent in the capital, doing much better there than in the rest of Britain. Add on a national swing of 3.5% to Labour’s 2015 lead in London and you’d expect to find them about 16 points ahead, which is exactly where they are.
The 2016 London mayoral election looks like one of voting along ordinary party lines. The first two directly elected mayors of London were very unusual “showbiz” politicians, widely known by just their first names. Ken Livingstone initially ran an an independent and even after rejoining was clearly always semi-detached from and not reliant upon London Labour. Boris was Boris – the paltry link between his electoral success and that of his nominal party underlined by the voting figures at the last mayoral election. Boris was four points ahead of Ken in the first round of the mayoral vote, but Labour were nine points ahead of the Conservatives in the simultaeneous vote for the London Assembly – a gap of 13 points between their performance in the mayoral vote and the assembly vote.
There is no such gap in this mayoral election. If you compare mayoral voting intentions and London assembly voting intentions this time round there is no significant contrast – Sadiq Khan is 16 points head in the mayoral vote, Labour are 16 points ahead in the London Assembly vote.
If we put aside the personality driven politics of the mayoral election, London is an increasingly Labour city. Labour won hefty victories in every other electoral contest in London in the last Parliament – they won the European election by 14 points, the local elections by 13 points, the London assembly by 9 points, the general election by 9 points. If Zac Goldsmith was to be competitive he needed to appeal to non-Conservative voters, and while he is getting some support from Liberal Democrat and UKIP supporters it really isn’t enough. With only a fortnight to go. Sadiq Khan’s position is looking very comfortable.
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ComRes published a new London poll yesterday. As with all the other recent London polling we’ve seen it puts Sadiq Khan in a relatively comfortable first place. First preference votes are KHAN 44%(+2), GOLDSMITH 37%(-2), PIDGEON 7%(+1), WHITTLE 5%(nc), BERRY 4%(-2), GALLOWAY 2%(+1). With second preferences reallocated it works out at KHAN 55%, GOLDSMITH 45%. Full tabs are here.
Looking at the detailed tabs three-quarters of people who voted Tory in 2015 say they’ll vote for Goldsmith, four-fifths of Labour’s 2015 vote say they’ll back Khan. At the general election London voted Labour by a substantial margin and they got a substantial swing in their favour, at the 2010 election Labour also outperfomed in London. It is becoming an increasingly Labour city. Boris managed to break that link and win despite being a Conservative, clearly winning votes from people who did not support the Conservative party (on the same day that Boris won re-election as mayor the Labour party easily won the election for the London Assembly). Thus far Goldsmith and Khan don’t really appear to be doing that, the vote is splitting largely along normal party lines and that should result in a win for Sadiq Khan.
Meanwhile we’ve had three new EU referendum polls since my last update. ICM and YouGov have both published polls conducted online and showing one point leads for REMAIN. ICM’s figures are REMAIN 44%, LEAVE 43%, DK 13% (full details here), YouGov’s are REMAIN 39%, LEAVE 38%, DK/WNV 23% (full details here).
There was also new ORB telephone poll for the Telegraph. This is a little more interesting – regular readers will remember the last ORB phone poll was the one showing a Leave lead, extremely unusual for a poll conducted by telephone. This poll shows a seven point lead for REMAIN (REMAIN 51%, LEAVE 44%, DK 5%) far more typical of other polls conducted by phone. Full tabs are here.
Two new GB voting intention polls over the last couple of days. Opinium in the Observer had topline figures of CON 33%, LAB 32%, LDEM 5%, UKIP 17%, GRN 4% (full tabs are here). Meanwhile BMG released some new GB voting intention figures today: their toplines are CON 36%(-2), LAB 31%(+1), LDEM 7%(+2), UKIP 16%(nc), GRN 5%(nc), and full tabs are here.
The last few polls we had (from ICM, YouGov, ComRes and Ipsos MORI) all had Labour and the Conservatives within a few points of each other. Opinium show a very similar picture, but while BMG do show the Conservative lead falling a little, they’ve still got a five point lead. At first glance I considered whether this could be due to fieldwork dates – perhaps as the negative coverage of the budget and IDS’s resignation faded the Conservatives were recovering? It’s not that though, the Opinium fieldwork is actually considerably more recent that the BMG fieldwork, which took place over Easter. Perhaps it’s a methodological difference, or perhaps it’s just normal random sample error – looking at the broad picture across all the pollsters it still looks as if the gap between Conservatives and Labour has closed right up to a few points.
There was also a new Opinium poll on the London mayoral election. First round voting intention figures are KHAN 35%, GOLDSMITH 27%, WHITTLE 3%, PIDGEON 3%, BERRY 2%, GALLOWAY <1%, DON'T KNOW/WNV 30%. Without don't knows that would work out at Khan 49%, Goldsmith 39%, Whittle 4%, Pidgeon 4%, Berry 3%, Galloway 1% - a solid lead for Sadiq Khan. After reallocating second preferences and taking only those 10/10 certain to vote, Opinium's topline figures are KHAN 54%, GOLDSMITH 46%. Full tabs are here.
Time for a quick update of other polls over the last few days. Firstly, YouGov put out new Scottish voting intentions at the weekend and London voting intentions yesterday.
YouGov’s Scottish voting intentions were SNP 49%, LAB 19%, CON 19%, LDEM 6% for the constituency vote; SNP 43%, LAB 17%, CON 19%, GRN 8%, LDEM 5%, UKIP 4% for the regional vote. The SNP obviously retain their overwhelming lead. Note how the Conservatives and Labour are essentially neck-and-neck for second place, this is consistent with YouGov’s last Scottish poll, but no other company has the Tories so close to Labour. Full tabs are here.
YouGov’s London poll shows Sadiq Khan still ahead, his nine point lead over Zac Goldsmith almost unchanged from January. Topline figures are KHAN 45%(nc), GOLDSMITH 36%(+1), WHITTLE 7%(+1), PIDGEON 5%(+1), BERRY 4%(-1), GALLOWAY 2%(nc). While Khan wouldn’t win on the first round, asked how they’d vote if the final two candidates were Khan and Goldsmith supporters of other candidates split 43%-30% in Khan’s favour, so he would come out as the comfortable winner. Full tabs are here.
Finally, and perhaps most intriguingly, there was a new ORB poll of EU referendum voting intentions in the Telegraph this morning. Topline figures were REMAIN 47%, LEAVE 49%, DK 4% (don’t know is so low because ORB have a squeeze question, asking how people who say don’t know are leaning). What’s interesting is that the poll was conducted by telephone – up until now we’ve seen a straightforward divide between phone polls showing a solid REMAIN lead and online polls showing a race that is neck-and-neck. Suddenly that online/phone divide doesn’t look so black and white. Full tabs are here.
It’s been almost two months since we’ve had any polling on the London mayoral race, but Opinium have released a new poll today showing Sadiq Khan still ahead. First round preferences are Khan 31%, Goldsmith 26%, Whittle 2%, Berry 2%, Pidgeon 2%, Galloway <1% (these figures are including don't knows, hence the low scores. Without don't knows it would work out at Khan 48%, Goldsmith 42%, Berry, Whittle and Pidgeon all on 3% and Galloway on 1%.)
Given the low level of support for all the candidates outside the main two Khan is close to winning on the first round anyway, but after asking a forced choice and reallocating preferences between the final two it works out at Khan 55%, Goldsmith 45%. Full tabs are here.
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Opinium
