The 2024 UK local elections are taking place on 2nd May.
The most high profile election of the day will be the London Mayoral election where Sadiq Khan is hoping to win an unprecedented 3rd term as Mayor of London.
While Khan is a controversial figure, his main Tory rival in this year's race is the shockingly embarasing Susan Hall. Hall has made the headlines for liking Twitter comments praising Enoch Powell and Donald Trump, for claiming to have been robbed when she lost her wallet and for her lack of knowledge when it comes to
Manifold thinks that Khan will win the vote - /cash/will-sadiq-khan-be-reelected-mayor
But will he win by the largest margin ever, beating Ken Livingstone's record set in the first Mayoral election in 2000? The leaderboard currently looks like this:
Ken Livingstone (2000) - 15.8%
Sadiq Khan (2016) - 13.6%
Ken Livingstone (2004) - 10.8%
Sadiq Khan (2021) - 10.4%
Boris Johnson (2008) - 6.4%
Boris Johnson (2012) - 3.0%
Important note - the voting system has changed since the last election. Previously, the election was run on the supplementary vote system where voters could register a first and second choice. No candidate ever received an absolute majority of the votes, so the results were always based on the other candidates' votes being redistributed to the top two candidates based on second choice votes.
For 2024, this will be run as a FPTP election where voters only vote for one candidate and whichever candidate gets the most votes will win. For the purposes of this market, I will be comparing the winning candidate's vote share to the candidate who comes second to see if this is a bigger majority than Livingstone's majority after votes had been redistributed in 2000.
If this is a close one, I will base it on the exact figures for 2000 and 2024 rather than the rounded figures.
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With a winning margin of 11.1%, Khan's winning margin was the third largest ever behind Livingstone's 2000 result and his own result in 2016.
This resolves to NO.
The early results have been superb for Khan!
The swing towards Labour in the inner seats has been big enough to put him near the threshold for this market if they’re repeated everywhere.
But we haven’t seen any results from the outer boroughs (where ULEZ is presumably a bigger issue) and things might look very different there!
@BonjTwo Both teams are putting out that they’re expecting it to be a lot closer, so it must be turnout figures of exit polling driving that. Standard spin for Hall’s team to suggest they’re in the fight, but for Khan to be downplaying expectations suggests some concern.
@BonjTwo I was out knocking on doors yesterday… A lot of people didn’t know there was an election happening and a lot of people said they wouldn’t vote. That definitely damped my expectations!
I’m still expecting a Khan win, but a much more narrow one than some of the most exciting polls!
@SimonGrayson Which party were you volunteering for? I did some calling for Susan Hall.
Based on my limited experience, I’d agree with you- a narrow Khan win is what I’m expecting too. Khan is hated in the outer boroughs of London, but that hatred is not necessarily converting into votes for Susan Hall.
@BonjTwo I was the polar opposite - canvassing for Khan and Labour in some very solid Labour areas in south London.
I wasn’t expecting to speak to anyone who was planning to vote for Hall, but just lack of enthusiasm and turnout around here would be very bad for Labour!
Interesting to hear your experience - it sounds quite similar from the opposite angle!
The latest poll (maybe the last one before Thursday’s vote?) suggests it’s not looking close:
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49286-london-2024-mayoral-race-khan-47-hall-25
Don’t forget there’s the alternative market on exactly how big Khan’s winning margin will be here:
We're only two weeks away from the big day! If you'd like to get more granular on the winning margin, there's a multiple choice market here:
The latest poll puts Khan ahead by 24%:
This is only the second poll of the year (a February Yougov poll put Khan 25% ahead) so hopefully there will be a bit more polling over the next month!