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

The general election is coming up this week, with voters heading to the polls across the country on 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 are the UK polls saying?

Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour has a 22-point lead in the latest poll on voter intentions from Techne UK, with the Tory-Labour gap remaining as wide as ever. However, both major parties have only gone down in the polls since the elections was called, as Labour started at 45 per cent and is now at 41 per cent.

With Nigel Farage now leading Reform, the right-wing challenger party has climbed its way up the polls, at 17 per cent — just tailing behind the Tories. In fact, Reform has made the most headway of any party since the election was called, jumping up by 5 points.

After a dip in the polls following Mr Sunak’s election announcement, the Tories have made no gains with voters. At just 19 per cent of the vote, the Conservatives are at their lowest levels of popularity with the electorate under Mr Sunak.

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 will be voting in this week’s election. Exclusive young people are making a point of refusing to vote, while under-35s are also the least likely to be registered to vote.

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.