The latest political polls might have derived different results but they are actually consistent and reflect a clear trend – undecided voters are increasing because Labour is losing support in its base and the Nationalist Party is not capitalising on it, according to a leading pollster.
Whereas in 2013, Lawrence Gonzi’s losses were Joseph Muscat’s gains, this time round, Robert Abela’s losses did not appear to make their way to Bernard Grech or the PN, Vince Marmarà said.
Marmarà said the difference in results between Times of Malta and Malta Today polls published on Sunday is likely down to the way in which the two polls processed the number of undecided voters.
A Times of Malta poll, carried out by market research firm Esprimi, found that Labour would win by around 18,000 votes if an election were to take place now. The survey shows the PL continued to shed voters – registering a five per cent decrease since last year’s election – and the PN has failed to gain any significant ground.
Meanwhile, a Malta Today survey published on the same day predicted the PN would win an election by a very slim margin of 2,000 votes, with the party emerging on top for the first time in the last 15 years of polls.
Both polls spell clearly that the PL is shedding votes fast and that an increasing number of its voters are disgruntled by their party. Those voters left their party and likely said they are now undecided on how to vote.
The Malta Today survey reported the figures of both those who stated which party they will vote for and those who said they are undecided but only considered the ones who clearly stated who they will vote for when it calculated the vote difference between the parties.
The Times of Malta poll takes the analysis one step further, Esprimi CEO Morgan Parnis explained.
It took into account that most respondents who are undecided traditionally still do go to the polls and vote for a party when an election comes around. Esprimi applied machine learning, which aids to predict the number of undecided voters at the time of the survey, how they would potentially vote and where their vote is likely to go.
And that is where the discrepancy in polls lies. The PL risks losing the election right now if all undecided voters did not show up to vote but it would gain a few more thousands if a percentage of them swing back to it. And that is what a percentage of undecided voters traditionally tend to do when the election comes around – they swing back to the party they supported in the previous election.
Around 85 per cent of undecided voters (now) end up going to the polls
Marmarà said around 85 per cent of undecided voters end up going to the polls.
Parnis said modern polling must accurately and sophisticatedly address the uncertainty surrounding the missing data and the number of undecided voters is part of that missing data.
“In last year’s election, the comparison between the last survey and the actual results can be used as a reliable indicator of accuracy in opinion polls,” he said.
“Esprimi’s survey and prediction models (last year) forecast a gap of 37,000 votes, which turned out to be remarkably close to the actual gap of 39,474 votes. In contrast, Malta Today’s projection was of 28,000 votes, clearly showing that the future of opinion polling must analyse refusals and undecided voters.”
PN and PL supporters during the election campaigns.Both parties struggling to retain voters
Marmarà said that even more significant is a trend emerging from both polls that shows that both PL and PN have been struggling to retain their voters and that few are shifting from one party to the other.
This means that an election now would see an even lower turnout than last year’s election.
“Even if you factor in the percentage of undecided voters that would likely vote, an election now would still see a voter turnout that is in the range between 70 and 80 per cent, which would be a new historic low,” he said.
Marmarà himself carried out a political survey last March which revealed that the PL’s 40,000-vote lead had already dropped to 26,000 a year after the general election.
This is consistent with figures that emerged from the state of the nation survey published last month by Marmarà and his team. The poll revealed a heightened sense of disgruntlement and disillusionment among voters who are increasingly weary and distrustful of politicians and the Maltese political system.
Polls carried out in politically charged climate
The Times of Malta and Malta Today polls were carried out during a politically charged couple of weeks that saw the controversy around the Jean Paul Sofia case intensify and during which thousands of people were repeatedly left without electricity for hours in a persistent heatwave.
Marmarà said he has not yet run a poll since the political climate intensified this month. He said he prefers to allow the current political mood to calm down and for emotions to be more neutral.
It is easy to get many angry people saying they will not vote at the moment because of all that is happening, he said, whereas, in two or three weeks’ time, people will have calmed down and their responses in the polls will be closer to how they actually intend to vote in the next election.
It all boils down to voter retention
Analysing both of last week’s surveys, Marmarà said it all boils down to voter retention. Both parties are losing votes but, whereas until last election the PN was losing more votes than the PL, the tables have now turned and it is the PL which is losing its grip over the most votes.
No party is significantly making inroads to attract new voters and this has been going on for quite a while, he said.
“PL gripped a very strong majority that was close to 40,000 votes in 2013 and polls and election results since then have consistently shown that the increase or decrease of the discrepancy between the two parties was down to the number of voters that both parties managed to retain from the previous election,” he said.