New poll gives Labour 8 point lead in marginal seats

There’s a new poll conducted by ComRes for ITN News out tonight – and it’s the latest to show that Labour is performing better in the marginals than in the national polls, with a lead of 8 points. That’s down from 11 points with the same pollster back in September though, with Labour falling backwards slightly in the past couple of months. The poll results are:

Con                  31%       

Lab                  39% 

Lib Dem           7% 

UKIP                18%

Others              4%

The poll also shows that:

• One in ten people (10%)  who voted for Labour in 2010 now say that they would switch to vote UKIP, but so would one in five people (21%) who voted Conservative.
• Voters in marginal seats remain more likely to prefer a Labour to a Conservative government (41% to 36%), but David Cameron over Ed Miliband as Prime Minister (44% to 31%).

We’re expecting more marginal seat polling later this week from Lord Ashcroft as part of his continuing series, including – perhaps – some constituency polling from Scotland, that may give a sense of how much the SNP are damaging Labour in Labour-held seats. The Ashcroft polls are also more extensive, whilst the ComRes poll only polls 1002 across 40 constituencies.