“If election was today, AD would win with 29.3% of vote”
With only today and tomorrow left for political campaigning ahead of Sunday’s legislative elections, a new poll by Intercampus suggests AD (the centre-right Democratic Alliance) has widened the gap (positively) between PS Socialists by five percentage points.
Put simply, a month ago, the difference between the two leading political forces was 1.9 percentage points. Now, AD is looking at 29.3% of the vote, while PS Socialists are on 23.3%.
In the space between the last Intercampus poll, AD has increased in popularity by 5%, PS Socialists by 0.9%, writes Correio da Manhã, which jointly commissioned the poll with its sister outlet CMTV.
“Another detail” that comes from the poll is “compared to the previous month, CHEGA’s decline”.
Says the paper, CHEGA has dropped from the previous 16.5% of perceived voting intentions, to 15.6%.
Increases however have been registered by Iniciativa Liberal (centre right and ‘willing’ to strike a deal with AD if necessary), and LIVRE (left wing, and insisting the country needs a government of the left.)
Iniciativa Liberal (IL) has gone from 6.8% of the vote, to 7.8%; LIVRE has had an even bigger ‘leap’ in popularity – going from 2.7% to 4.3%.
Bloco de Esquerda has essentially stayed where it was in terms of voting intentions, increasing by 0.1% (from 5.4% to 5.5%), PAN has increased from 3.2% to 3.7% – and the country’s communists, under the CDU banner, have lost ground, going from February’s 2.7% to 2.1%.
CM’s report adds that “beyond the clear widening of the gap between AD and PS, the March poll shows a significant increase of the right. It currently presents 52.7% of voting intentions (when it was 47.4%), against 35.2% o the left (it was 33.2%).
Other details are a “slight increase in voting intentions for other parties, which are not the eight that currently have a presence in parliament” – and the finding: “There are now 87.4% of the electorate that say they are going to vote, against 86.3% in February”.
All in all, if the elections were today, says CM, AD would win with 29.3% of the vote. Whether that would be enough in terms of seats, is another question.
As for the high number of undecided, this new poll suggests that too is falling. “In February, 21% of voters did not know who they were going to vote for – a number that has fallen to 13% in March.
Plus “the numbers who said a month ago that they would not vote are now 6.9%, against 12.4% a month ago”.
Finally, a question on the image of the various party leaders put AD’s Luís Montenegro in the lead with 3%, followed by LIVRE’s Rui Tavares (2.9%), IL’s Rui Rocha (2-9%), PAN’s Inês Sousa Real (2.8%) and only then PS Socialist’s Pedro Nuno Santos (2.6%).
CHEGA’s André Ventura was the leader who polled the ‘least’ when it came to image (2.3%).
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
ENDS
