Corbyn support dropping outside his base
Corbyn support dropping outside of his core supporters
In the first Opinium poll after Mr Corbyn was elected leader, 28% approved of the way he was doing his job, which has stayed more or less the same in our December poll (27%). However, the proportion of likely voters that disapprove of the way he is handling his job has risen from 35% to 52% over the same period.
To best analyze how Jeremy Corbyn is doing as Leader of the Opposition, we looked at the leadership preferences of two groups of likely voters ? those who gave Jeremy Corbyn a higher job approval score versus those who gave David Cameron a higher job approval score. We see the same change here. In September Cameron was narrowly favoured over Corbyn by 43% to 37% respectively but this has widened to 46% vs 32% in December.
Voters outside Corbyn?s base are turning against him
From the first week he was elected, younger voters (aged 18-34) preferred Corbyn to Cameron while Cameron was clearly preferred over Corbyn amongst older voters (aged 55), a pattern which has become even more polarized during the Labour leader’s first 100 days which has contributed to his declining overall ratings.
Unfortunately for the Leader of the Opposition, the bulk of middle aged voters (35-54) are coming to the same conclusion as older voters.
The provinces versus the capital
An even greater threat to the Labour leader are the regional patterns. Jeremy Corbyn may now be the preferred leader in London in our latest poll, but when he was first elected in September at least this was also the case in Labour?s traditional heartlands in the North and Wales with a 3% and 14% lead respectively.
Three months on and his support in those old heartlands have dropped, with David Cameron now clearly the preferred leader in Northern England and Wales.
The difference between the capital and the rest of the country is a serious problem for Labour. As London warms to the new Labour leader, the rest of the country is turning away from him. The most striking thing is that opinion outside London is now worryingly consistent, cutting across many of the traditional party identifiers such as social grade and region.
Of course, these perceptions are not set in stone and the direction of travel for Jeremy Corbyn?s ratings might change. But for the moment it does appear that his support is dropping amongst most groups apart from his own personal core base.
Read more about our polling on Corbyn’s leadership here.
