MaltaToday Survey | PN chips away at Labour lead but gap stands at 39,000 votes

Support for the Nationalist Party has climbed in July but the gap between the two major parties still sees Labour ahead by 39,000 votes.

The July MaltaToday survey shows the PN support running at 32.4%, an upward movement of 3.1 points. The Labour Party loses 0.7 points and now stands at 45%.

The gap between the parties is almost 13 points, down from 16 points last month. When previous election voting patterns are analysed according to what people say they will do now, the PL leads by 39,000 votes.

The gap between the two major parties in the last general election was of 35,280 votes while in the June MaltaToday survey the gap stood at 48,000 votes.

The latest survey was carried out in the week after Malta was greylisted by the FATF, something which does not appear to have had much of an impact on the PL. Although the PL’s score has slipped, its leader’s trust rating continues to increase, which suggests the party has potential to grow.

On the flipside, despite Bernard Grech’s increase in trust, the PN leader remains less popular than his party.

The findings show that while the PL manages to retain 81.6% of those who voted for it in 2017, the PN’s retention rate stands at 77.6%, an increase of 7.5 points over last month.

But more PN voters are switching to the PL than vice versa. Although fewer than last month, 5.7% of PN voters in 2017 say they will vote PL if an election is held tomorrow, in contrast with 1.6% of PL voters who will switch allegiance.

The survey shows that support for ADPD stands at 1.1%, while 8.4% of voters say they will not vote and 12% are unsure.

Age and region

The PL beats the PN across all ages with the widest gap between the parties being in the 36-50 age bracket. Within this cohort, the PL scores 44.1% and the PN 27.5%.

In the young age group, the PN has bridged the gap substantially since the last survey, reducing the PL’s 11-point lead to four points.

On a geographical basis, the PL leads in Gozo, the South-Eastern and Southern Harbour regions, while the PN is ahead in the Northern and Northern Harbour regions. In the Western region, the parties are practically neck and neck with the PN enjoying the slimmest of leads at 37.7% against the PL’s 37.3%.

The gap between the parties is wider in those regions where the PL is ahead, including Gozo where Labour has a 17-point lead.

The PN’s strongest showing is in the Northern region where it scores 42.1% and enjoys a 4.4-point lead.

Results by age groups and region have to be interpreted with caution since the margin of error is higher in these sub-groups.

Methodology

The survey was carried out between Monday 28 June 2021 and Tuesday 6 July 2021. 651 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 4.9% for a confidence interval of 95% for the overall results. Demographic and sub-group breakdowns have significantly larger margins of error.