The latest Gallup leadership poll for Berlingske Tidende shows Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen (Lib) and Helle Thorning Schmidt (SocDem) almost neck and neck as favourites for the post of prime minister but with the opposition leader slightly ahead.

According to the poll, 37 percent of voters say Løkke Rasmussen is their favourite for the post, while 38 percent favour Thorning Schmidt.

The downturn in Løkke Rasmussen’s popularity comes following several weeks of unrest in government ranks, a drop in the polls and reports of criticism of the prime minister from within the senior ranks of his cabinet.

“The question is whether the Lib-Con-DanPeople era is coming to a close,” says Professor Søren Risbjerg Thomsen of Aarhus University. Thomsen adds that throughout his premiership, Løkke Rasmussen’s predecessor Anders Fogh Rasmussen was always ahead of his opponents in leadership polls.

A previous Greens poll for Børsen showed that 68 percent of the electorate doubted that Løkke Rasmussen would win the next election.