Sadiq Khan has 22-point lead in new London Mayor opinion poll

Sadiq Khan has extended his lead in the London Mayor election campaign to 22 points, an increase of two compared with last month, according to a new opinion poll.

The incumbent Mayor was found to be the first preference choice of 50% of the 2,000 Londoners polled by Redfield and Wilton Strategies, with his closest rival, Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey, static on 28%.

Luisa Porritt, the recently-announced Liberal Democrat candidate, and the Green Party’s Sian Berry are in joint third place with 10% each. Exactly half of the poll’s respondents said they are “certain” to vote in the postponed election on 6 May 2021.

The poll shows that Khan’s support has remained solid for the past three months in polls conducted by the same company, standing at 49% in early August and 48% in early September. Support for Bailey has also remained almost entirely unchanged, standing at 26% in the August poll and 28% last month.

Khan’s high level of support creates the possibility that he could win next May’s postponed mayoral election on first preference votes alone by receiving more than 50% of them, which would be the first time such an outcome had occurred since the creation of the mayoralty 20 years ago.

His support is particularly strong among young Londoners, with 60% of 18-to-24-year-olds and 65% of 25-to-34-year-olds saying they will vote for him, compared with 18% and 20% who favour Bailey. Khan has more support than Bailey from all age groups, with the exception of those aged between 55 and 64, among whom Bailey enjoys a lead of 1%. Female voters prefer Khan to Bailey by 54% to 25%, and male voters prefer him by 46% to 30%.

Khan’s support is drawn in almost equal amounts from Inner and Outer London voters, standing at 51% in Inner London and 49% in Outer London. The support for Bailey and Berry by the same measure is very evenly split too. Porritt is the first choice of 11% of Outer London voters and 8% of Inner Londoners.

Khan is supported by 14% of Londoners who voted Conservative at last year’s general election and Bailey by 74% of them. A further 8% of Tory general election voters said they will vote for Sian Berry.

The voting intention findings are drawn from the same Redfield & Wilton survey On London reported other findings from on Sunday, which showed positive approval ratings for Khan in all major policy areas except housing. The fieldwork took place between 15-17 October.

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