MaltaToday poll closest to result

The MaltaToday survey was the closest to the actual result of the general election both in terms of the numerical gap and the percentage gap between the two major parties. 

The MaltaToday, Times of Malta and Vincent Marmara surveys all predicted a comfortable Labour victory with a reduced majority from the 39,000-vote gap and the 13.4 percentage-point gap Labour achieved in the 2022 election. 

But while the MaltaToday survey predicted an 18,000-vote gap between the PN and the PL, the Times survey predicted a more substantial 33,600-vote gap, while the Marmara surveys predicted a 30,000-vote gap. 

The actual result showed Labour leading the PN by 21,721 votes. 

Moreover, while the MaltaToday survey predicted a 6.4-point lead for Labour, Marmara’s survey predicted a 10.5-point gap and the Times survey a 10.6-gap. The real percentage point gap amounted to 7.1 points, the closest to MaltaToday’s prediction. 

The MaltaToday survey was also closest to the mark in terms of party percentages, predicting Labour to gain 50.6%, the PN 44.2% and other parties 5.2%. 

The actual result put the PL at 51.8%, the PN at 44.7% and other parties at 3.5%. 

This means that the MaltaToday survey underestimated Labour’s score by 1.2 points and the PN’s score by 0.5 points, while overestimating support for third parties by 1.7 points.    

The difference between the MaltaToday survey and the actual result is well within the survey’s margin of error (+/-2.6 pp). 

The differences between the result and the results of the two other surveys were also within their respective margins of error. 

The Times survey was closest in predicting the election’s turnout. While the MaltaToday survey predicted a lower turnout of 79.1%, the Times survey predicted an 89% turnout, which was closer to the official turnout of 87.4%. 

Actually what the MaltaToday survey predicted was not the turnout but the share of valid votes (excluding both people who did not turn up to vote and also those who invalidated their vote) which in this election amounted to 85.8%.