London Mayoral Odds: Sadiq Khan Tipped To Beat Conservative Susan Hall
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Betting sites have plunged Sadiq Khan’s odds to win the London mayoral election to an all-time low as he nears 50% in the polls.
Mr Khan has been Mayor of London since 2016 and is credited with a general uptick in Labour support across the capital over the past decade.
Londoners will vote for their mayor on May 2, with Mr Khan coming up against controversial Conservative candidate Susan Hall.
Green candidate Zoe Garbett and Rob Blackie of the Liberal Democrats are not expected to make much of an impact.
The media have pitched this election as a head-to-head battle between Mr Khan and Ms Hall.
Yet while Ms Hall has endured a number of gaffes in her campaign, there are some that believe the Tories could run Labour closer than expected this spring.
And that is causing confusion in the London mayoral betting odds, with bookmakers unable to agree on a price for the top two candidates.
London Mayoral Election Odds
Mr Khan is favourite among all political betting sites to win the London mayoral election. Yet the odds vary greatly.
Some bookies have the incumbent as short as 1/33 to win in May, while Betway have the longest current odds at 1/13. Even that long price is enough to suggest Mr Khan has a 92.9% chance of winning.
Ms Hall, by comparison, is set between 6/1 and 12/1 to claim victory in the capital. BetVictor’s widest odds hint at a 7.7% likelihood.
The reason for the discrepancy in the odds is largely down to uncertainty over the polls.
Mr Khan dominated the polls in 2021 but only beat Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey by 4.7% in the first round, and 10.4% in the second.
The latest YouGov poll shows Mr Khan has a 25-point lead over Ms Hall and is on 49% across the capital. Those figures have generally held steady since October.
Ms Hall is a less viable mayoral candidate than Mr Bailey but she has generated plenty of media hype in recent months – for better or for worse.
It is this media hype that seems to be keeping Ms Hall in the race, along with an expectation that there are enough Conservatives in London to perhaps swing the vote.
Can Khan Lose The Election?
Indeed, it is estimated 30% of Londoners vote Tory and 35% vote Labour. Mr Khan therefore has a natural lead over his rival but there are plenty who don’t want him to be mayor.
The polls and betting apps correctly predicted he would win in 2021 but got the margin wrong. No-one expected Mr Bailey to produce such a strong result.
History could repeat if Ms Hall proves to be a viable candidate for uncertain voters.
Mr Khan’s approval ratings aren’t good despite him having the backing of voters, and he has a record to defend.
The Financial Times warn that a requirement to carry voter ID will also affect Labour voters more than Tories.
What’s more, residents who are more likely to be Labour leaning aren’t scared of criticising the mayor.
He has been blasted for appointing a “Night Czar” and claiming London is a 24-hour party city, despite the number of nightlife venues in the capital being in decline.
Controversial MP Lee Anderson also recently claimed Mr Khan had “given our capital city away to his mates” – an Islamophobic slur that has cast the mayor inadvertently into the spotlight.
Despite the controversies, Mr Khan is also the consistency candidate and the Tories are struggling to win any elections at the moment.
Distrust in the governing party means 2024 is a bad year to be a Conservative candidate running for London mayor.
In that sense it’s hard to see how Ms Hall wins this election. Every bookmaker has priced Mr Khan odds-on for victory and that makes sense. The only uncertainty is around quite how short to set his price.
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