PL 26,000 votes ahead of PN, marginal increase from last Marmara survey

Updated 10.35am

The Labour Party would win by around 26,000 votes if an election were to be held tomorrow, according to the latest survey by Vince Marmara. 

Published on Saturday, the poll says the PL would get 52.3% of the votes while the PN would get 43.5%. 

Both parties are roughly where they were in last month’s poll by Marmara, which found Labour was 25,000 votes ahead.

A Malta Today poll last week found Labour would win with a much narrower, 7,600-vote margin. However, despite the discrepancy, the poll also yielded a very similar result to another Malta Today poll conducted last month.

Most significantly, beyond the numbers, both polls show Labour did not win over any voters after what it dubbed the “best budget in history” unveiled between the two polls.

In the Marmara survey published Saturday, 12.7% of responders said they are undecided on which party to back, while 1.7% would vote ADPD and 2% some other party.

The poll shows that even though Labour still enjoys a comfortable majority, it is losing electoral ground compared to its landslide 2022 general election victory.

However, Labour maintains a considerable lead in public trust on day-to-day issues. 

When asked which political party is best equipped to address their and their family’s concerns, 12% more pointed to the Labour Party compared to the Nationalist Party. This suggests that while the PN is slightly increasing its voter share, the PL still holds the public's confidence on core social and economic issues.

Marmara, who published his survey on Facebook on Saturday morning, noted that the category of undecided voters could sway the election either way.

The data was collected by Sagalytics between November 13 and 20 over the phone.

The sample of 1,200 voters aged 16 and up rendered a 95% confidence level and a ±2.8% confidence interval.

Marmara used the Multiple Imputation Technique to analyse the data. The technique is used to predict what undecided respondents would do if an election were to be held tomorrow.

Trust in party leaders

Marmara's analysis of the collated data shows that 43.6% trust mostly PL leader Robert Abela, while 34.9% trust PN leader Alex Borg.

Meanwhile, 8.4% said they do not know whom to trust, while 5.1% trust neither. A further 7.9% trust some other person.

Again, the gap between the two leaders' trust this month - 8.7% is similar to that of last month's poll - 8%.

Meanwhile, the survey also shows that 84.5% of those who voted Labour in 2022 trust Abela while 2.7% prefer Borg.

On the other hand, 88.4% of those who voted PN three years ago, prefer Borg, and 1.7% would trust Abela.

Would voters trust the same party?

Marmara's survey also asked 2022 PN voters whether they would vote for the same party if an election were to be held tomorrow.

A total of 89.7% of those who voted for the Nationalists in 2022 would do so again, while 1% would vote ADPD or other parties and 7.6% are undecided. 1.7% of 2022 PN voters would not vote.

Meanwhile, 83.8% of 2022 PL voters will vote Labour again.

1.7% said they would switch to PN, while 1% would vote ADPD or other parties.

And while 7.4% said they are still undecided, 6.1% said they would not vote.

A Times of Malta pre-budget survey showed Labour ahead of the Nationalist Party and would win an election by around 15,000 votes.