Election neck and neck with 48 hours to go
THURSDAY’S mayoral election is set to go to the wire, with Boris Johnson having a narrow advantage as the campaign enters its final days.
Yesterday’s YouGov poll gives the Conservative candidate a 52–48 lead over Labour’s Ken Livingstone once second preference votes are taken into account. This is a slight increase of two points on the company’s previous poll and could still be overcome.
Commenting on the findings a spokesman for Ken Livingstone said: “The election is neck and neck and going all the way to the final vote cast on Thursday.”
On first preference votes Johnson has a narrow lead of 44 to 41, with Liberal Democrat Brian Paddick on six per cent.
But when Paddick’s votes are reallocated more than 70 per cent go to Johnson, pushing him close to victory.
In an election dominated by candidates’ personalities perhaps the most telling finding was that over a third of voters would like to go for a drink with Johnson but 16 per cent want to have a pint with Livingstone.
However, polling can be an inexact science: a survey by Populus last night put Johnson a whopping 12 points ahead of Livingstone, forecasting him to win 56 per cent of the final vote.