Savanta ComRes Political Tracker – May 2022

May’s edition of the Savanta ComRes political tracker, including Westminster Voting Intention, favourability ratings and best PM metric.

Labour regain seven point Voting Intention lead – Savanta ComRes Political Tracker

Headline Voting Intention: CON 34 (=); LAB 41 (+2); LD 10 (-1); SNP 4 (=); GRE 4 (+1); Other 7 (-2); all change from 6-8 May
Favourability ratings: Starmer -10 (-5); Johnson -30 (-11); Sunak -18 (+2); UK Government -33 (-8); change from April Political Tracker 8-10 April
Joint lowest score for the UK government since tracker began (-33 also in Jan ’22); lowest for Starmer since Jul ’21.
Best PM ratings: Starmer 36 (=); Johnson 34 (-1); Don’t know 30 (+1); change from April Political Tracker 8-10 March

Labour regain a sevent point lead in the Westminster Voting Intention, their largest lead since the beginning of April, according to the latest political tracker from Savanta ComRes.

The party rises two points in this poll, to 41%, with the Conservatives remaining static on 34% for the second consecutive week. The Liberal Democrats, buoyed by a good performance in May’s local elections, record their first two back-to-back double digit vote shares since the beginning of April.

If these results were played out at a General Election, Labour would still be a handful of seats short of an overall majority, according to electoral predictions website Electoral Calculus, but would likely be able to govern without the support of the SNP.

Despite the encouraging poll lead for Labour, their leader, Keir Starmer, takes a five-point favourability rating drop to -10, his lowest score since summer 2021, with Beergate a likely contributing factor since the last tracker in April.

However, this drop is considerably smaller than those experienced by the Prime Minister amid Partygate (-13pts, Nov-Dec 2021) and the Chancellor from March-April 2022 (-26pts).

Rishi Sunak, in fact, rebounds slightly in this poll, rising two points to a net rating of -18, while the Prime Minister drops 11pts to -30, having recovered somewhat last month when more attention was focused on Sunak.

The government’s overall net favourability also drops to -33, the joint lowest it has ever been in a Savanta ComRes poll.

Despite this, the Best Prime Minister ratings remain virtually changed, with both Boris Johnson down just one point (34%) and Keir Starmer unchanged (36%).

This does, however, mark the sixth consecutive month that Starmer is ahead of Johnson on the Best PM metric, having always trailed the Prime Minister until December of last year.

Commenting on the findings, Chris Hopkins, Political Research Director at Savanta ComRes says,

“The headline numbers in this poll are fairly unsurprising, with Labour continuing to lead in the voting intention, the Prime Minister and the government still suffering from poor favourability, and Keir Starmer feeling some fallout from Beergate. As ever, Labour still seem to be struggling to capitalise fully on the government’s poor ratings, and as long as that’s the case, there could be some potential for a Boris bounceback.”

“However, a voting intention lead of 7pts, while likely depiriving Labour of a majority, could well be enough to allow it to govern without the support of the SNP. If – and it’s a big if – Labour can sustain this, there is seemingly a path to No.10 for Keir Starmer, without having to risk the breakup of the union by being reliant on the SNP to form a government.”

Date Published: 19/05/2022

Categories: Voting Intention

Methodology

Savanta ComRes interviewed 2,196 UK adults aged 18+ online from 13-15 May 2022. Data were weighted to be representative of all UK adults by age, sex, region and SEG. Voting intention were also weighted by 2019 past vote recall, and 2016 past vote recall. Savanta ComRes is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.