Roberta Metsola and Alex Agius Saliba remain the clear frontrunners in the race for a seat at the European Parliament, consolidating their lead ahead of all other candidates, a new Times of Malta poll shows.
Both Metsola and Agius Saliba made almost identical gains over the past month, when a previous Times of Malta poll was held, to remain neck-and-neck in the race.
Metsola is still the most popular candidate of all, with 21.5% of voters listing her as their preferred candidate, an increase of 1.6 percentage points since March.
Agius Saliba follows closely behind, with 20.2% of all votes, gaining 1.7 percentage points over the past month.
All other candidates trail far behind the leading duo.
PN MEP candidate Peter Agius is the third most popular candidate overall, clinching 2.2% of votes, just ahead of Imperium Europa leader Norman Lowell at 1.9% in fourth place.
Incumbent David Casa, current PN MP David Agius, PL hopefuls Daniel Attard, Steve Ellul and Clint Azzopardi Flores, as well as independent candidate Arnold Cassola each registered roughly one per cent of preferences.
With talk of his possible candidature dying down in recent weeks, former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat sees his share of preferences drop by almost 2.5% since last month, now claiming just over 1% of the vote.
However, the share of undecided voters remains remarkably high, with 41% of all voters saying that they are yet to make up their minds.
Men go for Agius Saliba, women for Metsola
Agius Saliba remains the more popular candidate amongst male voters, but the gap has narrowed to a slim one percentage point lead over the past month, when Metsola trailed by nine points.
The opposite is true of female voters – while Metsola retains a three-point advantage among this group, this is down from the 10 percentage points registered in March.
The two also split the vote across different age groups, with Metsola proving more popular among younger voters under the age of 34 and those over 55, while Agius Saliba takes top spot for more middle-aged voters between 35 and 54.
Unsurprisingly, the two are also the clear first choice for people who voted for their respective parties in the 2022 general election.
Metsola captures almost 57% of the votes of people who voted PN in 2022. Eight per cent of PN voters say they would pick Peter Agius, with a further 3% going for each of David Agius and Norman Lowell.
Likewise, 43% PL voters in 2022 say they plan to vote for Agius Saliba. Curiously, Metsola herself shares second spot among this group, with almost 3% of PL voters picking her as their choice, a similar ratio to that of Daniel Attard.
Notably, one in five of those who abstained from voting in the 2022 election now say that they will opt for Metsola, although almost two-thirds of them remain undecided.
Other candidates who featured among non-voters include David Casa (4%), and several others at 2%, including David Agius, Norman Lowell, Peter Agius, Arnold Cassola and Miriana Calleja Testaferrata De Noto.
Alex Agius Saliba did not feature at all amongst the preferences of non-voters.
The poll, carried out by market research firm Esprimi was conducted amongst 600 respondents in early April.