Electoral surveys show larger swing to PN than Labour

Surveys by MaltaToday, Xarbank and The Malta Independent published over the weekend confirm a clear shift from the Labour Party to the Nationalist Party. 

But all surveys published in the same period show Labour heading towards a majority of votes, which suggests that the swing is still not big enough to overturn Labour’s 2013 majority.

All three surveys show the Labour Party losing from 5.8% to 9% of its 2013 voters to the Nationalist Party and the Nationalist Party losing between 3% and 4% of its 2013 voters.

In this regard the Torca survey is the exception, showing Labour losing only 3.9% of its 2013 voters while gaining 4.6% of PN voters of 2013. But numerically the PN would still gain more votes than it loses. For based on these percentage figures while the PN would gain 6,533 from the PL, the PN would lose 6,091 to the PL.

Moreover when losses of each respective party to abstention are taken into account all four surveys show Labour losing more votes than the PN. The calculation is based on the percentage which has been lost and gained by each party to its rival party and to abstention, as a percentage of the actual number of 2013 voters.

Gains for the PN range from 4,420 votes in the Xarabank survey to 9,781 in the Independent survey while PL losses range from 9,891 in the MaltaToday survey to 8,133 in the Xarabank survey.

The Torca survey also shows Labour losing more votes than the PN over 2013. While the PN loses 353 votes, Labour loses 4,523, mainly due to a higher abstention rate among PL voters.

In fact while the Torca survey shows practically no shift from the PL to the PN, it shows the highest abstention rate among Labour respondents. In real terms the Torca survey shows 4,523 Labour voters from 2013 not voting now.

These figures do not take into account gains made by the parties from new voters and non-voters in the 2013 election.  MaltaToday’s survey indicates Labour ahead among new voters and the PN ahead among non-voters in 2013. 

Despite indications that the PN is gaining more votes than the PL over 2013 figures, all surveys show the PL leading both in the extrapolated figures (after don’t knows are eliminated) and in non extrapolated figures.

Labour’s gain ranges from just 2.2 points in the Xarabank survey and 9.3 points in the Torca survey. When figures are extrapolated Labour’s lead ranges from 2.6 points in the Xarabank survey to 12 points in the Torca survey.