MaltaToday Survey | Labour ahead by 27,000 votes as parties plateau

Robert Abela ends the second week of the electoral campaign with a trust rating of 43.2% in MaltaToday’s rolling survey, while Bernard Grech trails at 29.9%.

The Labour leader is trusted more than the Nationalist leader across all age groups, among men and women, and in all regions bar one. The gap between the leaders stands at 13.3 points.

The survey has been building up its sample size on a daily basis, ensuring that daily polling reflects the country’s demographics and past voting patterns. By Friday at 8pm, 1,220 people were polled since Monday, 21 February.

Abela’s trust among men is more pronounced than among women. The Prime Minister enjoys the trust of 46% of men as opposed to 40.6% of women.

There is little difference between the sexes for the PN leader, who is trusted by 29.2% of men and 30.5% of women.

Middle-aged propel Abela

Across the age groups, Abela enjoys healthy advantages over Grech with his strongest performance at 50.7% being among those aged between 51 and 65.

Among young voters aged between 16 and 35, the PL leader has a trust rating of 38.6% as opposed to Grech’s 24.7%. However, there are 28.2% of people in this age cohort who trust none of the two leaders.

A more distrustful group is the 36-50 age cohort, where 31.2% trust none of the two leaders. Within this group, Abela enjoys a trust rating of 36.8% against Grech’s 25.2%.

Grech’s best performance is among pensioners where he scores 39%, albeit still trailing Abela, who registers a rating of 47.9%.

Abela captures all regions but one

On a geographical basis, Grech beats Abela in the Northern region. This region is made up of Għargħur, Mellieħa, Mġarr, Mosta, Naxxar and St Paul’s Bay.

Grech scores 35.5%, while Abela registers a rating of 29.7%. But elsewhere, the PN leader trails Abela with significant margins in the south and east of the country.

In the Northern Harbour region, Abela scores 39.9% against Grech’s 36.7%, while in the Western region the Prime Minister’s trust stands at 36.6% against Grech’s 32.2%.

In the South-Eastern region, the PL leader scores a trust rating of 55.8%, while Grech registers his worst performance at 16.3%.

This region is composed of Żejtun, Birżebbuġa, Gudja, Għaxaq, Kirkop, Marsaskala, Marsaxlokk, Mqabba, Qrendi, Safi and Żurrieq, which correspond to the 3rd and 5th electoral districts that are Labour strongholds.

In the Southern Harbour region, Abela scores his best performance at 56% against Grech’s 24.5%. This region is made up of Valletta, Vittoriosa, Isla, Bormla, Żabbar, Fgura, Floriana, Kalkara, Luqa, Marsa, Paola, St Luċija, Tarxien and Xgħajra. This region largely conforms to the 2nd and 4th electoral districts, which are also Labour strongholds.

In Gozo, Abela enjoys the trust of 43.1% against Grech’s 31%.

Among those who are saying they will vote PL in the 26 March election, Abela enjoys the trust of 97.1%, while Grech enjoys the trust of 90.1% of those who will vote PN.

But 7.6% of prospective PN voters say they trust no one as opposed to 1.4% of prospective Labour voters.

Labour ahead by 27,000 votes as parties plateau

The Labour Party ends the second week of the electoral campaign with 53.4% of support and a nine-point lead over the Nationalist Party, MaltaToday’s rolling survey shows.

The PN’s support runs at 44.4%, while third parties collectively garner 2.2% of the vote.

The extrapolated result puts the gap between the two major parties at 27,265 votes, up from 22,645 last Sunday but short of the 35,000 gap in the 2017 election.

The results are based on an expected share of valid votes that equates to 85.7% of eligible voters. This is not the turnout figure but rather the basis on which an election is determined – valid votes cast.

In the 2017 election, the turnout was 92.1% and the share of valid votes cast stood at 90.9%.

This means that MaltaToday is projecting a higher abstention rate than five years ago that appears to be impacting the PL slightly more than it does the PN.

The raw data shows that the PL beats the PN across all age groups, among men and women and in three out of the six regions.

Among young voters aged between 16 and 35, the PL’s support stands at 31.4% and that of the PN’s at 24.5%. Among pensioners, both parties score their best results with the PL enjoying the support of 43.5% and the PN at 37.4%.

Regions split in half

On a geographical basis, the outcome is more balanced than the trust barometer, indicating that although Bernard Grech faces a trust deficit, people are still willing to support the PN.

The PL wins in Gozo, the South-Eastern and Southern Harbour regions, while the PN captures the Northern, Northern Harbour and the Western regions.

The largest gaps between the parties are found in traditional Labour hinterland in the south and south east, where the PN continues to score very low.

Shifts and abstentions

The parties each experience a 4% share of their 2017 vote that shifts to the other side. Given the Labour Party’s bigger share of the vote in 2017, this means there is a net movement of just over 1,400 votes from the PL to the PN.

There are also 6% of 2017 PL voters who say they will not vote, which equates to just over 10,000 votes, and 6.9% of PN voters, equivalent to just over 9,000 votes, who will likewise stay at home.

Among new voters, the PL registers 24.1% support, the PN 20.2% and small parties 1.5%. However, 34.4% of new voters say they are uncertain who to vote for and 7.5% will not vote.

Methodology

The survey is the cumulative data set carried out between Monday 21st February 2022 and Friday 4th March 2022. 1220 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 2.8% for a confidence interval of 95% for the overall results. Demographic and sub-group breakdowns have significantly larger margins of error.