The latest survey of Londoners’ voting intentions in advance of the rescheduled London Mayor election next spring has found Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan maintaining a huge lead over his nearest rival, the Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey.
A new poll by YouGov suggests that a commanding 51% of London voters will give Khan their first preference vote under the supplementary vote system, compared with 30% who currently favour Bailey.
Should that outcome be reproduced in the actual election on 6 May, Khan would secure a second term as Mayor without the need for second preferences to be counted, as any candidate receiving more than 50% of first preference votes is automatically declared the winner. It would be the first time that had happened in a London Mayor election, the first of which was held in 2000. The poll also shows that if second preference votes did come into play, Khan would take the lion’s share and prevail by a margin of 64% to 36%.
Khan’s 21-point lead is in line with the outcomes of the four mayoral voting intention polls conducted earlier this year, all of which have put him at least 20 percentage points ahead of Bailey. The three most recent, all conducted by Redfield and Wilton, have given Khan leads of 22 points (in October), 20 points (September) and 23 points (August), and a YouGov poll in March, carried out shortly before the mayoral election was postponed from its original date of 7 May this year, put him 25 points ahead.
Bailey has seen his position slightly improve as the year has gone on – from 24 points in March, to 26, 28 and 28 in the three Redfield and Wilton polls and 30 in the new one from YouGov. The latter shows a significant six-point improvement from YouGov’s March poll, although at that time the former Tory minister Rory Stewart was in the race as an Independent, which is likely to have drained some support away from Bailey. Stewart withdrew from the race in May. Khan’s rating is up by two points compared with the March poll.
In the new poll, conducted for the Mile End Institute of Queen Mary’s University, Green Party candidate Sian Berry is in third place on 9% of first preference votes, followed by Liberal Democrat Luisa Porritt on 4%, UKIP’s Peter Gammons on 2% and the Women’s Equality Party’s Mandu Reid on 1%. Berry has been consistently on 9% or 10% since the summer. Porritt, who was only named as Lib Dem candidate last month, was on 10% with Redfield and Wilton in their most recent survey.
OnLondon.co.uk exists to provide fair and thorough coverage of the UK capital’s politics, development and culture. It depends greatly on donations from readers. Give £5 a month or £50 a year and you will receive the On London Extra Thursday email, which rounds up London news, views and information from a wide range of sources. Click here to donate directly or contact davehillonlondon@gmail.com for bank account details. Thanks.
I’ve received this leaflet today snd I think this is totally underhand on the part of Shaun Bailey. If I had been considering voting for Mr Bailey this would have definitely put me off. I’d like to know too what it’s actually cost to produce these very official looking leaflets and where the money came from.