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During the five years in which Jeremy Corbyn was Leader of the Labour Party, countless centrists insisted that anyone other than Corbyn would be 20pts ahead of the Conservatives in opinion polls. Well, Corbyn isn't Labour Leader anymore. So how have the polls changed?
In this article, I'll analyse how the polls have or have not changed since Keir Starmer became Leader of the Labour Party. In short, Labour has made small gains since Starmer won, but it is not 20pts ahead in the polls and it is farther behind the Tories than it was in the 2019 election.
How the polls have changed since Starmer won
Keir Starmer was elected as Labour Leader on April 5th 2020, winning 56% of the popular vote in the first round. In the month since then, Labour's share of the vote in polls has risen slightly, as shown in the graph below.
By my estimate, Labour would win 171 seats in an election based on the poll average in the month since Starmer won; this is an increase of 15 seats compared to my estimate for the poll average in the month before Starmer won. However, the Tories would win a majority of 152 seats.
The main reason for the 3pt increase in Labour's poll average is an increase in support for Labour amongst Remain voters. In the month before Starmer won, Labour was averaging 46% with Remain voters; the party is now averaging 50% (+4), with the Tories on 26% (-), the Lib Dems on 11% (-3), the SNP on 6% (-1) and the Greens on 5% (-1).
Labour's 50% poll average amongst Remainers is higher than the 49% of Remain voters that it won in the 2019 general election. However, it is still lower than the 55% of Remain voters that it won in the 2017 election.
However, amongst Leave voters, there has been no notable change in Labour's support. In the month before Starmer won, Labour was averaging 12% with Leave voters; it is now averaging 13% (+1), with the Tories on 76% (-2), the SNP on 3% (+1), the Greens on 3% (+2) and the Lib Dems on 2% (+1).
Labour's 13% poll average amongst Leavers is lower than the 14% of Leave voters that it won in the 2019 election, and much lower than the 24% of Leave voters that it won in the 2017 election.
Approval ratings
Voting intention polls are not the only polls that have been conducted since Starmer won. Multiple polls have asked voters whether they approve of Starmer's performance as Leader in the month since he became Leader. It is possible to compare these with similar polls of Corbyn's performance and see how voters have changed their perceptions of the Labour Leader.
In the month before Starmer became Leader, Jeremy Corbyn's average approval rating was 20%, with 62% disapproving - a net approval rating of -42pts.
Meanwhile, in the month since Starmer became Leader, Starmer's average approval rating was 32%, with 17% disapproving - a net approval rating of +15pts.
51% of voters either said that they neither approved nor disapproved, or that they didn't know.
Although lots of voters either don't know or neither approve nor disapprove, Starmer's approval rating (32%) is 12pts higher than Corbyn's approval rating in the month before Starmer won. The percentage of voters disapproving of Starmer, meanwhile (17%) is 45pts lower than the percentage who disapproved of Corbyn (62%).
But how do these figures compare to the initial performance of other Labour Leaders? As the graphs below show, every Labour Leader since Michael Foot in 1983 have had positive approval ratings in their first month except for Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. Starmer's average net approval rating of +15pts is the same as Ed Miliband in 2010, slightly lower than Brown in 2007 (+16pts) and Kinnock in 1983 (+20pts), and much lower than Tony Blair in 1994 (+33pts) and John Smith in 1992 (+24pts). His average net approval rating is, however, much higher than Jeremy Corbyn (-9pts) and Michael Foot (+2pts).
One noteworthy statistic is that all Labour Leaders since 1983, with the exception of Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Blair, were initially greeted with a high "Don't know" response: 41% for Miliband, 44% for Brown, 45% for Smith, 54% for Kinnock and 56% for Foot. The high "Don't know" response to Starmer (51%) is thus not particularly unusual when seen in the context of past Leaders.
Best Prime Minister polling
One of the many things that Corbyn was criticised for was the fact that, most of the time, he polled behind David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson in polls that asked voters who they thought would be the best Prime Minister. So, is Starmer polling better than Corbyn in Best Prime Minister polls?
In short: yes, he is. In the month before Starmer won, Corbyn's average Best PM rating was 16%; in the month since Starmer won, Starmer has averaged 23% in Best PM polls (+7pts). Boris Johnson's average lead in Best PM polls, meanwhile, has fallen from 29pts to 23pts.
2021 will give us a clear answer
Starmer is certainly polling slightly better than Corbyn, but polls are just polls.
In May 2021, elections will be held for 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, 40 seats in the Welsh Parliament, 25 seats in the London Assembly, over 5,000 seats on 149 local councils, 5 local Mayors, 8 regional Mayors (including London) and 39 Police and Crime Commissioners. The 2021 local elections will thus provide us with a lot of data about Labour's performance and about Keir Starmer's popularity - and will tell us definitively whether or not Starmer has managed to increase Labour's support.
