Zoe Garbett

YouGov’s latest poll for the 2024 London Mayoral election has been published. With six months until voters cast their ballots, Labour’s Sadiq Khan looks on track to be comfortably re-elected.

According to YouGov’s polling, Khan has the support of 50 per cent of Londoners, with the Tories’ Susan Hall trailing well behind on 25 per cent. If that were to be borne out in reality, the Tories would pick up the lowest share of the vote they’ve ever received in a London Mayoral election.

That wouldn’t be the only record broken if the poll were to be repeated at the election. YouGov has 11 per cent of London’s voters backing the Green Party’s candidate Zoë Garbett, who is in third place.

In the 2021 London Mayoral election, the Greens’ Siân Berry received 7.8 per cent of the first preference vote – the highest for any Green candidate since the mayoralty was created in 2000. As such, were Garbett to pick up 11 per cent of the vote, it would be a record breaking result for the Greens.

Picking up more than 1 in 10 votes in London would be a more impressive feat than in previous elections as a result of the changes to the electoral system. In previous elections, voters were able to express two preferences and if no candidate received more than 50 per cent of the first preference vote, the top two candidates would enter a second round of counting, where voters’ second preferences were counted. As a result of changes made by the Tory government, the next election will take place using first past the post – the same system used for elections to the House of Commons.

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