General election polls: Are Labour or the Conservatives on track to win?

The general election is here, with voters heading to the polls across the country today (Thursday 4 July.)

The last general election was in 2019, when Boris Johnson and the Tories won 365 seats, while Jeremy Corbyn’s Labourwon 202. Since then, both parties have switched leaders — in some cases, more than once — not to mention Brexit coming into effect and a worldwide Coronavirus pandemic.

In the midst of an election betting scandal, surprise elections in France, and the first Trump-Biden debate: what were the UK opinion polls saying?

Yesterday 3 July: The Tories finally saw some last-minute joy in the polls as they scraped a final two points in voter intention, in yesterday’s poll on voter intentions from Techne UK. But the incumbent party was still only at 21 per cent of voter intention in yesterday’s poll , which would make the lowest share of Conservative votes in modern history — if this translates to how people vote at the ballots.

Labour was down one point in the last poll, but maintained a strong 40 per cent of voting intention. Sir Keir Starmer’s party has a 19-point lead over the Tories. However, support for Labour has trickled down since the election was called, dropping five points from its triumphant high of 45 per cent .

With Nigel Farage now leading Reform, the party has climbed its way up the polls, at 16 per cent. Though at one point the right-wing challenger was tailing just behind the Tories, in the final hour that gap in voting intention has grown to 5 points.

In fact, Reform has made the most headway of any party since the election was called, jumping up by 4 points from 12 per cent. Meanwhile the Lib Dems are at 12 per cent, after being neck-in-neck with Reform for the past few months, gunning for the spot of third-highest polling party.

Both parties appear to be picking up support from historical Tory voters.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak settled on 4 July for the general election after months of speculation.

But not everyone may be voting in today’s election. Exclusive Techne polling for the Independent in June showed that high rates of young people are making a point of refusing to vote, while under-35s are also the least likely to be registered to vote. These figures do not predict what will happen at today’s polls.

In addition, voter registrations in the lead-up to this election were down by 25 per cent, compared to the same period ahead of the 2019 general election.

Although it is not entirely clear why Mr Sunak chose now to go to the polls, one in four people believe that the prime minister was hoping to benefit from recently improved inflation figures, according to a Redfield and Wilton poll for the Independent.

If that is the case, the Tories have seen no joy when it comes to voter intention.

Satisfaction with both Mr Sunak and Sir Keir remains poor, according to a separate monthly poll by Ipsos UK.

The general public has been overall dissatisfied with both the prime minister and Sir Starmer, with Ipsos polls showing negative net satisfaction consistently for both party leaders since Mr Sunak entered No. 10 in November 2022.

Mr Sunak’s approval rating fell to the ranks of lowest-ever for a prime minister in April, at -59 per cent approval; matched only by John Major in August 1994. This is lower than Liz Truss, whose net approval rating was at -51 per cent for her brief stint as prime minister.

An exclusive Independent poll from Redfield and Wilton shows that the economy tops the list of issues that are most important to voters, at 37 per cent. With inflation finally slowing down (at 2.3 per cent as of May), the economy could be a key button for the Tories to press; if the general public can look beyond the past two years.

Meanwhile, healthcare is the most important issue for 1 in 5 voters at this election, in the wake of widespread strikes, pandemic strains, and scandals across the NHS including the infected blood inquiry and sky-high waiting lists.

Migration is also a dividing concern among voters, with both Labour and the Tories pledging to cut numbers.