Drawing on the lessons of the first two elections in 2000 and 2004, Hawkins made three key points.  First, London’s mayoral race has a dynamic that is quite different from the wider national political scene in that each candidate needs to have their personality in much greater prominence than their party.  Second, it has been the second preference votes of Liberal Democrats that have deprived the Conservatives of victory in the past two elections, and it is possible they will do so again.  Hawkins pointed out that the Liberal Democrat candidates in each of the previous two elections received more first and second preference votes than the Conservative candidate.  Third, Hawkins cautioned against excessive reliance on early opinion poll data when turnout has historically been very low – between 34% and 37%. 

 

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