Labour achieves a four-point lead, according to a new poll, following a televised grilling by Jeremy Paxman on Thursday night.
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However, the Labour leader benefited from a post-show bounce that suggests he could be on course for Downing Street.
The YouGov survey for The Sunday Times puts Labour on 36 per cent, with the Tories trailing on 32 per cent.
Most recent polls have been tied or seen one party only one percentage point ahead of the other. Labour last enjoyed a sustained lead of four points in September.
The poll also found that Mr Mililband came out top in last week’s back-to-back television interviews with Mr Cameron, with 49 per cent saying they thought the Labour leader came across the best as against 34 per cent for the prime minister.
The findings are in contrast to two snap surveys immediately after the interviews with Jeremy Paxman and a studio audience which both gave victory to Mr Cameron.
Meanwhile an Opinium poll for The Observer continued to show the two main parties neck-and-neck with the Tories on 34 per cent – down two points from last week and just one point ahead of Labour who were unchanged on 33 per cent.
After admitting the general election was on a “knife edge” on Saturday, Mr Cameron vowed to win back “instinctively Conservative” voters in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph.
“I don’t want another coalition,” Mr Cameron said in his final interview before the start of the full-time election campaign.
Speaking on Friday, Mr Cameron addressed the issues that some traditional Conservative supporters felt had been a disappointment.
Chief among their complaints are the coalition’s sweeping cuts to defence, with 20,000 soldiers sacked, the decision to spend billions more on foreign aid, and a new law legalising gay marriage.
He said: “I accept I have a task in the next 41 days to win back people who are instinctively Conservative, who have strong Conservative values and some of them have drifted off to other parties. I need to win them back.
I need to win them back. David Cameron
“It’s not easy being in coalition. We have had to take some difficult decisions and inevitably over five years you lose some people’s support.”