Asked “If there were an election tomorrow for Mayor of London, how would you vote?”, 48 percent of respondents said they would vote for Johnson while 41% picked Livingstone.
The poll gives the Liberal Democrats, who have yet to pick a candidate, just 2% of votes.
The former Mayor also polled lower than his successor when respondents were asked whether they would prefer than him or Johnson as Mayor – Johnson received the backing of 49% of those answering, 8 points more than his challenger.
Mr Johnson also scored higher than Livingstone on the question of honesty.
When respondents were asked to tick the qualities each candidate had, 24% described Johnson as “honest” while only 17% said this about Livingstone.
However while 37% said they felt Livingstone was “in touch with the concerns of ordinary people”, just 20% thought the same about the Mayor.
In addition, more people said Livingstone “Sticks to what he believes in” (41%) than picked this as one of Johnson’s qualities (32%) and while 13% say Johnson is a natural leader, 19% believe this is true of Livingstone.
Overall the poll will be disappointing news for the Livingstone campaign who are hoping unhappiness at the coalition’s cuts and austerity programme will diminish Johnson’s appeal to voters.
Damian Hockney says
Six months before the last Mayor election, most of the polling predicted a thumping win for the incumbent against Boris Johnson…not exactly what happened! Polling the the London Mayor election is very unreliable when there is no real campaign and little media comment from those involved. The only time it could be relied upon as a serious measure of what might happen a few months later is in the event of a very unpopular incumbent, or the dramatic impact of a policy identified with the incumbent. At present, indifference would be the most likely overall attitude and I suspect that the turnout will be around 35% and will not even reach that of the 2008 Mayor election, which itself did not see half the electorate turning out, in spite of all the hype.