UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party is headed for a historic wipe out in the July 4 general election, according to three new polls published in Sunday newspapers.
An MRP poll by Survation published in the Times predicts the Labour opposition will win a 262-seat majority in Parliament, with the Conservatives cut to just 72 seats. Opinium’s survey for the Observer showed Labour with a 17-point lead, and Savanta predicted “electoral extinction” for Sunak’s party in a poll for the Sunday Telegraph.
The figures indicate Sunak’s weak position going into the campaigned has deteriorated since he called the surprise vote three weeks ago. They suggest the Conservatives headed for their worst defeat since the party was formed two centuries ago, with less than half the seats they had after a rout in 1906.
“Our research suggests that this election could be nothing short of electoral extinction for the Conservative Party,” said Chris Hopkins, political research director at Savanta.
Survation’s MRP work used 42,000 interviews from May 31 to June 13 and was the most detailed. It showed:
Savanta’s research suggested Labour has a 25-point lead, the biggest since Liz Truss’s brief term as prime minister in 2022. It had Labour on 46% of the vote, the Conservatives with 21% and Reform at 13%. Liberal Democrats were in fourth place with 11%. That survey of 2,045 adults was done June 12-14.
“There’s a real sense that things could still get worse for the Conservatives,” Hopkins said, “Time is already close to running out for Rishi Sunak.”
Opinium said the two main parties are on track for their lowest share of the vote since 1945, with voters drifting to other groups like Reform and the Liberal Democrats.
It found smaller parties had gained ground during the campaign. That bucked the pattern seen in 2019 where voters increasingly opted for the main parties as the campaign went on.
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