The Conservatives gained three points in the latest opinion poll to stand just one point behind Labour, with David Cameron the only party leader whose popularity is moving in the right direction.
A ComRes survey for the Sunday Mirror and Independent on Sunday put the Tories on 38%, with Labour unchanged at 39% and the Liberal Democrats up one on 11% since last month.
Labour has benefited most from the defection of 45% of the junior coalition partner's 2010 supporters - four fifths of them switching support to Ed Miliband's Opposition, it showed.
Only around one in five (21%) backed Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's party leadership, with the gap to those critical of him growing from 31 points to 35.
Mr Miliband's rating - 22% unfavourable to 39% - was also worse than last month while those supporting the Prime Minister's performance increased from 37% to 39% - a gap of only four points to those disagreeing.
There was some good news for Mr Clegg's efforts to show a more "muscular" influence within the coalition with almost half (49%) giving him some credit for moderating the NHS reform package.
Altogether, the radical shake-up was comprehensively opposed, however, by 62% to 15%.
More voters now also believe the coalition has been better for the country than a minority Tory administration - by 40% to 34% as opposed to 38% to 37% a month before.
ComRes interviewed 2,004 adults online on May 11 and 12 2011 and data were weighted to be representative of all adults and by past vote recall.
