Trust in Abela remains steady while Borg improves: Times of Malta poll

Robert Abela remains the most trusted party leader, comfortably leading Alex Borg, according to the final Times of Malta poll before Saturday’s general election.

Nevertheless, Borg has seen his trust rating rise slightly since a poll held earlier in the campaign.

The poll, carried out by market research firm Esprimi, asked voters to award both party leaders a score out of 10, ranking from one (lowest) to 10 (highest).

Voters awarded Abela a trust rating of 6.9, with Borg scoring 4.4.

This means the gap in trust between Abela and Borg stands at roughly 28 percentage points, a similar margin to that recorded earlier this month.

Pollsters surveyed 600 people aged 16 and over between May 18 and 23, with a margin of error of four per cent.

Abela’s score of 6.9 is almost identical to the 6.8 rating registered in a similar poll earlier this month.

This suggests trust in Abela remains higher than at any point since the early days of his leadership, when he regularly registered scores well above the 6.5 mark.

Trust in Abela had dipped sharply following the 2022 election, dropping to a low of 4.3 in the summer of 2023, before slowly climbing back up over the following years.

He received a sharp boost at the beginning of the electoral campaign, when his trust rating rose from 5.9 in April to 6.8 in May, as voters rallied behind Abela.

Meanwhile, Borg has also seen a slight rise in his own trust rating compared to earlier this month, when it had dipped to 4.2.

Nevertheless, Borg’s trust rating remains lower than in the early days of his leadership, when he had scored 5.4 in a similar poll just weeks after being named party leader.

By April, trust in Borg had dipped to 4.8, before dropping further once the electoral campaign kicked off.

Borg more popular than ever among PN voters

Borg’s rise in trust appears to be almost entirely driven by his success in bringing more PN voters onto his side as the electoral campaign progressed.

In this latest poll, PN voters awarded Borg a score of 7.5, higher even than the early days of his leadership, when they gave him a score of 7.2. His popularity among the PN faithful had dipped since then, dropping to 7.1 in April and 6.9 earlier this month.

However, Borg does not appear to have made significant inroads with either Labour voters or non-voters.

While Labour voters had initially warmed to Borg, awarding him a relatively high score of 4.4 upon his election as party leader, their view of him appears to have soured, with his score now dropping to 3.

Borg’s trust rating among non-voters has dipped slightly from 5.1 upon his election last autumn to 5 today.

Abela, meanwhile, has won over many of his party’s own disgruntled voters in recent months, seeing his score among Labour voters rise from 7.4 last October to 8 in April, before settling at 8.5 in the two most recent campaign polls.

Although polls suggest that Abela was never a particularly popular figure among PN voters to begin with, his trust rating among this group has dipped slightly from 3.3 earlier this month to just under 3.2 today.

However, Abela has seen his rating improve markedly among non-voters.

While this stood at just 4.1 in April, before the campaign kicked off, it rose to 5.4 earlier this month, rising further to more than 5.7 in this most recent poll.

Abela leads among all age groups

Abela remains the more trusted leader among voters of all ages, the poll shows.

Compared to the poll held earlier this month, he registered slight increases across several age groups, particularly young voters under 25 (from 6.1 to 6.8), and those aged between 35 and (from 6.2 to 6.5).

However, his rating among middle-aged voters aged 45-54 has dipped (from 7.4 to 7), with his government’s popularity registering a similar drop.

Borg, on the other hand, has not seen his popularity dip among any age group compared to earlier in the campaign, although he has also struggled to significantly increase his rating among any voter group.

Younger voters under the age of 44 broadly awarded Borg a score identical to those registered in the previous poll. However, his popularity has increased slightly among those aged over 45.

Borg improves in most regions but still trails Abela

Borg will be heartened to see that his trust rating has improved across almost all of Malta’s regions over the past weeks, rising most sharply, from 4.4 to 5.1, in his home district of Gozo.

He registered similar, albeit smaller increases in the more PN-leaning towns in the north and west of the island.

However, he has seen his trust rating continue to dip in Labour-leaning areas such as the southern and south-eastern towns.

Nevertheless, Borg continues to trail Abela in every region.

While Abela remains ahead of Borg in Gozo, he has seen his trust rating dip sharply in Malta’s sister island, dropping from 7.4 earlier in the campaign to 6.6 in this latest poll.

Abela’s popularity also dipped slightly in Malta’s western region. However, he has registered increases in the Labour heartlands, with a score of 7.5 in the south and south-east.