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Different polls, same bad news for PN
While the MaltaToday survey puts the gap between PL and PN at 11 points, the Times of Malta survey places the same gap at 6 points… but results in a greater swing from PN to PL. The discrepancy explained.
15 January 2013, 12:00am
James Debono
James Debono
2 min read
Lawrence Gonzi - trust rating remains crucial.
The difference between the Misco survey published in the Sunday Times and the MaltaToday survey published in the same day can be attributed to the greater participation of Labour leaning respondents in the MaltaToday survey.
In fact both surveys agree on the PN's percentage (27%) and differ by only half a percentage point on AD's. But while the Misco survey fixes the PL's support at 33%, MaltaToday's survey puts the same percentage at 38%- a difference of 5 points.
But this discrepancy can be easily explained by the fact that while only 26% of respondents in the Sunday Times survey declared voting Labour in 2008, the percentage rises to nearly 36% in MaltaToday's survey.
While the gap between the two major parties in the past election was 13% in the Sunday Times survey, in MaltaToday's survey it is 2.2%.
In reality the gap in the last election amounted to less than a percentage point. This means that the political allegiance of respondents in MaltaToday's survey is a closer reflection of the 2008 election result.
MaltaToday surveys had indicated that the gap between the two major parties was narrowing in December: from 12 points in October to 8 points two weeks before Christmas. But during the first week of the campaign the gap increased again to 11%.
On the other hand the Sunday Times survey shows that the gap has narrowed from 12 points in October to just 6 points now.
One crucial difference between the two surveys is that while the Sunday Times survey was held before the PL unveiled its energy plans, the MaltaToday's survey was held between Monday and Thursday i.e. both before and after the presentation of the plans.
Although the Sunday Times indicates that the gap between the two parties is narrower, it crucially reveals that the swing between the two parties has increased from 6 points a year ago, to 12 points now. The swing accounts for respondents switching from the PN to the PL, and vice versa.
In MaltaToday's survey, 11.3% of PN voters are switching to the PL, while only 1.5% are shifting from PL to PN: resulting in a net swing of 9.8 points. In the Sunday Times survey, 13% of PN voters are switching to PL while only 1.3% of PL voters switch to PN: resulting in a net swing of 11.7 points.
This means that the net swing in favour of Labour is effectively 2 points lower in our survey than that of the Sunday Times. This makes the implications of the Misco survey more damning for the PN than that of MaltaToday.
James Debono is MaltaToday's chief reporter on environment, planning and land use issues, ...
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Might I add that Louis Galea was sidelined by the PN in favor of a certain DR Franco Debono(those in his district will surely understand). Karma? Or Justice:)
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I agree that polls such as these mean nothing (it was the same in the last election, and the one before it etc..) and help only to instigate the loyalty of PN supporters to vote again. George Orwell would write five allegorical books on our partisan media, no doubt about it for it has reached the deepest pits of Tartarus in my opinion. "Shame on Them" (influenced by the great Conrad Mizzi). Damn I hope the Pl party wins this election, for they are indeed the genuine party of the South (at least in the past we had Louis Galea before he was betrayed and unmercifully sidelined by the PN). The 'Triq Tac Cawsli' in Haz Zabbar was only repaired in a decent manner after 25 years ,!!!!!, BUT they saw fit to repair the road in which Where's Everybody is based (even though the former is used by all the south and the latter by some cleverly disguised pn loyalists-about 5 in all). The difference with Labour is that it hold to its heart both the North and the South. Damn if Labour does not win the upcoming election I do not know what I'll do..... Shame on the PN!
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MISCO is the company used also by GonziPN. It is owned by Lawrence Mizzi. Enough said !
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Lawrence Gonzi - trust rating remains crucial. Ħeqq x'tistenna? Mela lil-gonzipn tista' tafdaħ? fiex? Jiem ma tantx ngħati każ il-polls, l-elezzjoni tkun f'idejn il flowters, bħall ma qalu ta' qabli. Anke f'laħħar minuta tal-votazzjoni, ngħidu aħna xi siegħa żejda...
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The graphics for the way respondents voted in 2008 are faulty. The article quotes 36% of respondents declared they had voted for PL in 2008 but the bar graph denotes only 26%
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Polls are fickle and they can vary from day to day. The election is going to hang on the undecided voter. Those that are diehard supporters of the PN are going to vote PN and those those that are diehard of the PL will vote PL. That leaves the undecided voter who has has not made up his or her mind who to vote for. And that is the way it should be. Do not vote with your eyes closed and look and listen very carefully before you cast that vote. Don't pay attention much to political promises because most of those are nothing but empty promises full of hot air. I am sure the younger generation will give their vote a lot of thought and will vote with their hearts instead of with the party. I think this election belongs to the younger generation and they will decide who is elected.
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Ferha bla temma jekk xi nazzjonalist ra il=grafika u ma indunax li PL huma bil-blu u gonzipn bl'ahmar. X'kienet ir-raguni li inqelbu l-kuluri?
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@ Raphael Dingli - fil-passat il-polls tal-Malta Today iccumbaw ir-rizultat bi precizjoni kbira. Imma jekk ma temminx f'dawn il-polls, kull ma trid taghmel hu li thoss il-polz tal-poplu. Ghalija jindika li gejja tkaxkira nobis ghall-PN. Wahda rekord!
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The polls mean absolutely nothing.When other is practically an equal number of respondents who did not answer.No basic first year maths graduate would agree that you could extrapolate the did not answers across the same spread of those who gave a response with such a small cohort.
