Another poll gives Jeremy Corbyn huge first preference lead

A private poll leaked to the Daily Mirror has given Jeremy Corbyn another huge lead in the first round of voting, and sees him narrowly winning in the final round. It is the third poll showing a Corbyn victory, following a YouGov one for The Times last week and another private poll leaked to the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush the week before.

However, this new poll puts Yvette Cooper, and not Andy Burnham, in second place – and shows her performing slightly better in the last round than Burnham did in last week’s.

Despite that, all the polling evidence so far suggests a Corbyn victory. He is also said to be performing well in each campaign’s phonebank canvassing and remains ahead in Constituency Labour Party nominations.

The new poll suggests that first round results are:

Corbyn 42%, Cooper 22.6%, Burnham 20%, Kendall 14%

In the final round, the poll suggests Corbyn would lead by 51% to 49%. Yet some doubt has been shed on the accuracy of this research. James Morris, who worked as a pollster for Ed Miliband, tweeted that it was unlikely that any campaign has spent money on a “proper” poll, suggesting that this was more likely to be data from a phonebank.

The numbers do not add up to 100%, which could be due to rounding – but that makes it even more unusual for Cooper’s number not to be rounded. It is beyond unlikely for the remaining 1.4% to be don’t know, as YouGov put that at around one in five voters.

The Mirror reports: ‘Some Labour MPs are now urging supporters of Mr Burnham and Ms Kendall to either back Ms Cooper or at least ensure she gets their second preference votes as the only way of stopping the Corbyn bandwagon.’ This might imply that the poll comes from the Cooper camp, as it gives her more credential as a stop Corbyn candidate, yet the net effect will likely be to bolster the Corbyn campaign.

It is unclear who leaked this poll, and for what purpose – but it is further evidence that beating Corbyn is going to be a big ask.