Tories and Labour neck and neck in final Guardian/ICM Poll

According to the preliminary results of the final Guardian/ICM campaign poll, Labour and the Conservatives are tied at 35%; meaning they are both heading into Thursday’s general election neck and neck.

The previous Guardian/ICM poll, published nine days ago, showed the Conservatives in a three point lead over Labour, but Miliband’s party has managed to pull them back, with the Tories at a stand still.

 

The Liberal Democrats are another party that has remained unchanged since the last campaign poll with just 9%, but the SNP has garnered one point and now sits with a score of 5%.

This win occurs at the same time that both Green and UKIP slip back two points, to a respective 3% and 11%.

The ICM preliminary prediction poll has a larger than normal sample size, and will be updated on polling day after interviews conducted on Wednesday night are fed into the data.

The YouGov poll for May 6 put both the Conservatives and Labour at a respective 34%, compared with the final Opium poll released on Wednesday afternoon that put Cameron’s party at only one point ahead of Ed Miliband’s. A TNS poll also gave the Conservatives a one point lead, although this is well within the margin of error.

 

With a second hung parliament predicted after polling booths close at 10pm on Thursday night, ICM spoke to voters on the government that they would prefer. Picked by 25% was a Conservative majority, the single most popular choice, closely followed by 23% preferring a Labour majority as Thursday nights outcome.

Voters own predictions were less favourable to Labour than the poll’s have suggested, with an average of respondents expecting Labour to secure only 32%; three points lower than the 35% that was predicted of the Tories.