MaltaToday Survey | Robert Abela trounces Delia and Comodini Cachia in equal measure

Robert Abela has strengthened his trust rating irrespective of whether his adversary is Adrian Delia or Therese Comodini Cachia, a MaltaToday survey shows. 

The Prime Minister beat both rivals resoundingly in the first trust barometer since Comodini Cachia emerged as the leader of the Nationalist Party’s majority MPs. 

Abela got a trust rating of 57.7% against Delia and 58.4% against Comodini Cachia. 

The Labour leader recovered three points in his match-up with Delia, since the last survey in June. 

There was no difference in the results obtained by Delia and Comodini Cachia, who scored 13.2% and 13.1% respectively when compared to Abela. 

Delia lost almost five points in a month, registering his lowest result since the beginning of the year. 

This was the first survey to gauge Comodini Cachia’s trust rating. 

The survey was held between Monday 13 July and Friday 17 July. On Monday, President George Vella decided that Delia will stay on as Opposition leader despite losing the confidence of his MPs, and on Tuesday, the PN executive approved a motion of no confidence in the party leader. 

Abela beats both opponents across all age groups, all regions and among men and women. 

A significant difference is in Gozo, where Comodini Cachia’s trust rating is almost double that of Delia. The pretender to the Opposition leader’s throne still trails Abela but manages to cut the gap to a mere four points, as opposed to Delia who trails by almost 25 points. 

The result in Gozo could be conditioned by the fact that the rebellion by PN MPs was fronted by Chris Said, who put forward the motion of no confidence and eventually went to inform the President of the outcome. 

Comodini Cachia fairs better than Delia in the Northern region but stumbles dismally in the Northern Harbour, where she only manages a trust score of 6%, as opposed to Delia’s 12.7%. 

The results by age group show very similar performances between the PN contenders in their respective match-ups with Abela. 

Abela’s strongest result in his match-up with Delia is among those aged between 51 and 65, where he scores a trust rating of 61.9%, and his lowest among those aged between 18 and 35 where he manages 53%. 

The Prime Minister obtains similar results in his match-up with Comodini Cachia, registering his best result (61%) among those aged 51-65 and his worst (54.8%) among the youngest voters. 

Delia’s best result is among those aged 65 and over, where he scores 22.4%, and his worst among the young with 9.7%. 

Similarly, Comodini Cachia’s best performance in her match-up with Abela is among those aged 65 and over with 20.9% and her worst among the young with 9.1%. 

Labour leads by 27 points

The Labour Party is leading its Nationalist rival by 27 points as it recovers some of the lost ground, according to a MaltaToday survey. 

The poll shows the PL running at 47.8%, an increase of almost two points on the June result, while the PN scores 20.8%, a one-point decrease. 

This is the third consecutive month that the PN has registered a decline. 

An analysis of the results based on voting patterns in the last general election, which assumes that unsure voters will return to the respective party they voted for, gives the PL an advantage of around 72,000 votes.  

The PL beats the PN among men and women, across all age groups and across all regions. 

The closest gap between the parties is in Gozo where the PL is leading by eight points. 

The sister island is also the region where the PN fairs best, obtaining 35.9%. 

A breakdown of results by voting patterns in the last general election shows that the PL retains 91.6% of its voters, while the PN retains 50.6%. 

Less than a 1% of PL voters are saying they will shift to the PN, while 3.3% of those who voted PN in the 2017 election now say they will vote Labour. 

The PN continues to be hampered by a large section of its voters, who appear to have switched off – 28.9% of 2017 PN voters say they will not vote, while 9.4% are uncertain what to do. 

The PL faces an abstention rate of 5.3%, who will not vote, and 2.4% who are unsure. 

Methodology 

The survey was carried out between Monday 13 July 2020 and Friday 17 July 2020. 585 respondents opted to complete the survey. Stratified random sampling based on region, age and gender was used to replicate the Maltese demographic. The estimated margin of error is 5% for a confidence interval of 95% for the overall results. Demographic and sub-group breakdowns have considerably larger margins of error.