MaltaToday Survey | Abela reverses downward trend, but Grech takes Gozo trust lead

Results in the original print version of 8 November 2020 erroneously carried the same voting patterns as the October survey; the results are updated online here correctly; no changes to the text from the original print version have been made.

Robert Abela has reversed a downward trend in his trust rating, gaining almost two points since October, a MaltaToday survey shows. 

The Prime Minister registered a trust rating of 48.4% in the November survey released today. This represents the first upward tick for Abela since the start of a gradual decline in July. 

But Bernard Grech now has the following of 90.4% of voters who say they will vote for the PN today. That means Grech has managed to reverse the factional trend that set in under the Adrian Delia leadership.  

Opposition leader Bernard Grech scored 31.5%, an increase of 0.6 points over last month.  

The gap between the leaders has widened to almost 17 points. Last month, the gap stood at almost 16 points.  

The survey was held after the Budget and the keynote speeches delivered by both leaders in parliament.  

Abela leads Grech across all age groups, among men and women, and in all regions bar Gozo.  

The Prime Minister enjoys a 15-point lead over Grech among those aged between 18 and 35. Abela’s advantage over the Nationalist Party leader narrows to eight points among those aged between 36 and 50 but widens in the higher age brackets.  

Among those aged 65 and over, the Prime Minister enjoys a 23-point lead over his rival.  

But Grech is giving the Prime Minister a run for his money among university-educated graduates, edging just past Abela with a 38% trust rating.  

On a regional basis, Grech manages to get in front of the Prime Minister in Gozo. The Opposition leader has a trust rating of 45.5% as opposed to Abela’s 38.2%.  

In all other regions, Abela emerges ahead of Grech, with the widest gap registered in the South-Eastern region.  

In the south east, Abela enjoys his highest trust rating at 57.8%, as opposed to Grech’s 18.4%.  

Retaining 2017 voters  

Abela retains the trust of 87.4% of those who voted for the Labour Party in the last general election, while Grech retains the trust of 79.7% of those who voted PN.  

Significantly, Abela enjoys the trust of 4.4% of Nationalist voters, as opposed to Grech, who only manages to command the trust of 0.9% of Labourites.  

There are 12.4% and 9.5% of PN and PL voters respectively who say they trust none of the two leaders. 

PN achieves best result in three years 

Support for the Labour Party stands at 44.2% and that for the Nationalist Party at 32.4%, the November MaltaToday survey shows.  

Both parties registered improved performances over last month, however support for the PL grew at a faster pace than that for the PN.  

The PL gained four points and reversed a downward trend that started in July. The PN gained just over 2 points and obtained its best result in three years.  

The gap between the major parties is almost 12 points.  

Support for ADPD, the new party born out of the merger between Alternattiva Demokratika and Partit Demokratiku, only managed 0.7% support.  

Starting from the actual performance of the political parties in the last general election and utilising the survey results to project the current vote difference, shows that the PL enjoys a lead of just over 38,000 votes, an uptick of 8,000 over last month. In the 2017 general election, the PL surpassed the PN by 35,280 votes.  

This assumes that those who are unsure, will vote according to their previous election choice.  

The survey shows that the PL trumps the PN among men and women, across all age groups and across four of the six regions.  

The PL registers 36.6% among voters aged 18-35, while the PN scores 29.6%. The same seven-point gap in favour of the PL is evident among those aged between 36 and 50.  

However, the PL widens its lead progressively in the older age groups, registering its best result among those aged 65 and over (52.9%). 

On a regional basis, the PN gains the upper hand in Gozo with a score of 50.6% against the PL’s 27.8%.  

The PN also is ahead in the Western region with 41.1% versus Labour’s 36.4%.  

In the four other regions, the PL is in front of its rival, registering its best result in the Southern Harbour region (58.1%).  

Of significance for the PN is the voter retention from the last general election, which now matches that of the PL.  

The Opposition party retains the support of 81.4% of those who voted for it three years’ ago, its best result so far. However, the PN continues to lose votes to Labour and 3.3% of those who voted for it in the last general election will now vote PL. The PL’s retention rate stands at 82.4% but the party loses 1.2% of 2017 voters to its rival. 

Methodology 

The survey was carried out between Monday 2 November 2020 and Friday 6 November 2020. 654 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 4.8% for a confidence interval of 95% for the overall results. Demographic and sub-group breakdowns have significantly larger margins of error.