mruk's final London poll shows Ken ahead
What I assume is mruk's final poll on the mayoral election is published in the Sunday Times tomorrow. The topline voting intention figures, with changes from last week, are JOHNSON 43%(-1), LIVINGSTONE 44%(-1), PADDICK 9%(nc). Once second preferences are re-allocated Ken Livingstone is projected to win by 2 points over Boris Johnson, 51% to 49%.
In practice this has Ken and Boris almost neck and neck, an even tighter race than MORI indicated in their final poll of the campaign a few days ago, which had Ken 3 points ahead on the first round and four points ahead on the second round (though MORI had a higher level of support for others and for Brian Paddick - the latter difference almost certainly because mruk did not include Paddick in the question prompt).
In the week ahead there should still be London mayoral polls by ICM (who showed Johnson 1 point ahead in a poll almost a month back now) and YouGov (who have shown large, but narrowing, Boris Johnson leads up until now). It remains to be seen whether all the pollsters converge together as they did before the 2005 general election, or whether they continue to project contrasting results.
