U.K. Conservatives Lead in Polls With Campaign in Final Week
U.K. Tories Have Poll Lead Trimmed in Comres/Telegraph Poll
(Bloomberg) -- Boris Johnson’s Conservatives hold a solid lead over Labour in the final weekend opinion polls before Thursday’s general election, although one projection suggested a huge Tory landslide is as possible as a hung Parliament.
A projection by Datapraxis in the Times newspaper, in which a YouGov poll gave the Tories a 10-point lead, put the cushion at 38 seats. Its previous analysis put the majority at 48, and the organization warned that as many as 90 constituencies are still up for grabs.
“We have never seen as many undecided voters this late in the campaign,” The Times quoted Datapraxis’s Paul Hilder as saying. “A much larger Conservative landslide is still possible -- but so is a hung Parliament.”
A Savanta ComRes poll for The Sunday Telegraph, showed that the Tories’ lead fell to 8 percentage points, back to where it was shortly before the starting pistol was officially fired on the campaign. That would be enough for a parliamentary majority of 14, the report said.
According to interviews with senior political officials on both sides of the divide, Johnson is heading for a majority of between 20 and 35 seats in the House of Commons, Bloomberg reported. All Conservative candidates have pledged to vote for Johnson’s Brexit deal, meaning even a small majority would in theory ensure the U.K. completes its divorce from the European Union by the Jan. 31 deadline.
An Opinium poll in the Observer suggests Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party failed to make any inroads in the past week, with the Conservatives amassing 46% of the vote for a 15-point lead. The left-leaning newspaper quoted Adam Drummond, head of political polling at Opinium, as saying the picture is “starkly negative.”
“Heading into the final week, a recovery is not impossible but doing so would require a turnaround even more spectacular than the one Mr. Corbyn achieved” in the 2017 election, Drummond said.
Poll Breakdowns:
Savanta ComRes (Telegraph) surveyed 2,034 adults Dec. 4-5:
- Conservatives 41% (-1 point), Labour 33% (+1), Lib Dems 12% (unchanged) Brexit 3% (unchanged).
Opinium (Observer) surveyed 2,003 adults Dec. 4-6:
- Conservatives 46%, Labour 31%, Lib Dems 13%, Brexit 2% (all unchanged).
YouGov (Times) surveyed 1,680 adults on Dec. 5-6:
- Conservatives 43% (+1), Labour 33% (unchanged), Lib Dems 13% (+1), Brexit (-1)
Delta (Mail on Sunday):
- Conservatives 44% (-1), Labour 33% (+1), Lib Debs 11% (-4), Brexit 3% (unchanged)
A separate Savanta ComRes poll commissioned by Remain United showed the Conservatives with a 6 percentage point lead over Labour.
Gina Miller, who founded Remain United as part of a drive to stop Britain’s departure from the EU, said if people vote tactically then the U.K. could still be set for a hung parliament.
“Based on these findings, remain and soft leave voters should be very energized knowing that their votes have the power to defeat a Tory majority,” Miller said in a statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Chiara Vasarri in New York at cvasarri@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lauren Berry at lberry4@bloomberg.net, James Ludden, Ian Fisher
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