Sadiq Khan warns of low turnout in Thursday’s London mayor election
Sadiq Khan has today raised concerns about low turnout at Thursday’s London mayor election, with the incumbent warning supporters against complacency.
Internal polling from Khan’s team shows a 9 per cent drop in the amount of Londoners that are certain to vote in the poll, which was delayed by a year by the Covid crisis.
Khan will be making a campaign stop with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer today in south London – the first time they have appeared together during the campaign.
Khan has held a 20+ point lead over Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey in most polls for the past year, however Labour warned that a very low turnout could provide a shock result.
Turnout for the 2016 mayor of London election was 45.3 per cent, however pundits expect it to be much lower this team due to Covid and a perceived lack of public interest in this year’s contest.
Starmer said that if people don’t turn out to vote on Thursday “then the Tories will win City Hall again”
“This election is a tight two-horse race – only me or the Tory candidate can win and become mayor,” Khan added.
On Thursday, 48m people will be eligible to vote across the country in a series of key elections that will act as the largest electoral test for Labour since the 2019 General Election.
Among them is a neck-and-neck by-election in the traditional Labour seat of Hartlepool, Scottish Holyrood elections and mayoral elections in places like London, Tees Valley, Manchester and the West Midlands.
A Focaldata/The Times poll has the Tories on 40 per cent to Labour on 39 per cent, while an Opinium/Observer poll has the Tories up by 42 to 39.
Last week’s Opinium/Observer poll had the Tories up by 11.
The two polls come after Boris Johnson’s Conservatives have led Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour by around nine or 10 points in the polls for weeks, with a YouGov survey earlier this week giving the Tories an 11-point lead.