Sadiq Khan has strengthened his lead over Zac Goldsmith in the battle for Mayor of London, an exclusive Opinium poll for the Evening Standard reveals today.
Labour’s candidate has a nine-point lead with just two days until the polling stations open.
But a politics expert said the race wasn’t over among fears of a low turnout and, speaking on LBC, Mr Goldsmith said: “I’m hoping to do a bit of a Leicester City, zoom in from behind and win.”
Mr Khan is on 35 per cent of first preference votes, which is unchanged since the last Opinium survey in early April. Mr Goldsmith is down a point to 26 per cent.
After second preferences are reallocated, Mr Khan leads by 57 per cent to 43. None of the other candidates gets more than four per cent.
Tony Travers, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics, cautioned that a low turnout would make the actual result much closer.
“You cannot say it is all over,” he said. “Turnout is likely to be 35 per cent or even 32 per cent. The big question is whose supporters will fail to turn out on the night — and most people think that the lower it goes, the better it is likely to be for Zac Goldsmith.”
Today’s poll found that Mr Khan had a clear lead of 32-18 on being trusted on housing, the issue most important to Londoners.
On crime, the rivals were closer at 24-21, while on public transport fares, Mr Khan was more trusted by 32-18. There was just a point between the pair on the environment and air quality, with a 23-22 split.
Mr Goldsmith was ahead 31-21 for attracting business and investment to London and on airport expansion by 22-19.
Adam Drummond, of Opinium, said: “We should be careful about focusing too much on second preferences since they have favoured both candidates at different points, but Sadiq Khan has been consistently ahead on first preferences and Zac Goldsmith will have to work very hard if he is to overturn this lead in the last few days.”