Delia stares defeat in the face as Labour races ahead with 13-point lead

Adrian Delia’s trust level continues to be hampered by a third of Nationalist Party voters who trust neither of the two main leaders, a MaltaToday survey shows.

The PN leader’s trust rating at 22.8% advanced by almost two points on the previous survey published at the beginning of May.

The latest survey was held between Thursday 9 May and Wednesday 15 May.

Delia trails Joseph Muscat by a wide margin but his biggest problem is the lack of trust from those who voted PN in the last general election.

Among this cohort, Delia secured the trust of 53.3%. But significantly, 33.2% said they trusted no one and 8.3% now trust Muscat.
Delia’s numbers are striking when compared to Muscat’s.

The Prime Minister registered an overall trust rating of 50.6%, a one-point decline. But Muscat retained the trust of 90.1% of 2017 PL voters. The results show that 7.1% of PL voters trust none of the two leaders and 1.5% now trust Delia.

Muscat’s trust rating trumps Delia’s among males and females, across all ages and all regions.

The Prime Minister’s strongest trust rating is among those aged 65 and over, where he scored 60.1%. His weakest (46.4%) was among those aged between 51 and 65.

Delia’s strongest (28.8%) trust rating was among those aged 51 and 65 and weakest (14.4%) among the young.

Muscat’s strongest trust ratings were registered in the South Eastern (59.4%), Southern Harbour (53.6%) and Gozo (51.8%) regions.

Delia’s strongest showing was in the Northern Harbour region with 29.9%, followed by Gozo (22.8%).

Unsure voters up as survey gives Labour 13-point lead

The Labour Party leads the Nationalist Party by 13 points with six days to go for the European election as voter apprehension grows, a MaltaToday survey found.

The results show that both major parties experienced declines since the last survey published a fortnight ago.

The PL polled 41.3%, a drop of almost three points, and the PN scored 27.9%, one point less than the last survey result.

If the survey results are projected onto the eligible voter population by excluding from the equation those who have not declared their vote, the PL is set to win the European election with 57.8% and a vote difference with the PN of almost 49,000. The PN would obtain 39.1% of the vote.

The survey was held between Thursday 9 May and Wednesday 15 May.

The number of people who said they were unsure who to vote for grew to 18.6% from 12.4%. But the number of people who said they will not vote on Saturday continued to slide to 9.2% from 9.8%.

Norman Lowell’s Imperium Europa, which registered for the first time at the start of May, maintained its result, scoring 1.1% and polling higher than Alternattiva Demokratika and the Democratic Party together.

Support for AD and PD declined, while the Maltese Patriots Movement registered a lowly 0.1%. This is the first time since August last year that support for MPM was captured by the survey.

PL loses ground in south, strengthens in Gozo

The Labour Party is leading the PN among men and women and across all age groups.

The PL’s strongest showing is among the elderly where it scored 59.9% against the PN’s 31.5%. Among those aged between 18 and 35, the PL leads the PN by 15 points (35.2% v. 20.1%).

Labour also trumps the PN across all regions but for the first time it registered significantly less strong results in the traditional hinterlands in the South East and Southern Harbour regions.

The PL’s losses in these two southern regions appear to have shifted to the ‘No Vote’ category, which may explain the Prime Minister’s unrelenting emphasis over the past few weeks on the importance of going out to vote.

In the South-Eastern region, the PL scored 49.3% against the PN’s 19.4% and in the Southern Harbour region it scored 42.8% against the PN’s 28.6%.

Significantly, Gozo has become a stronghold for the PL, with the party registering 47.1% against the PN’s 29.3%.

Imperium Europa appears to draw its strength from the Northern region, where the party polled 2.2%, and the South-Eastern region, where it polled 3%. Both regions include localities that have large communities of foreign residents living there.

The PL managed to retain 76.3% of those who voted for it in the 2017 general election, as opposed to the PN that only managed 65.6%.

Significantly, 2.1% of those who voted PL in 2017 will now vote for the PN but these are cancelled out by 4.7% of PN voters who will support Labour this time around.