Party ratings in July still show plenty of floating voters

Take note – story published 1 year ago

With the next Saeima elections approaching fast on October 1, political parties continue to jostle for position. According to the lastest poll conducted by SKDS for Latvian Television, the top three positions remained unchanged in July and a large proportion of voters were still undecided or apathetic.

The New Unity (JV) party of Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš remains in the lead, with less than a 9% share of the potential vote.

Second place is held by another coalition party, the National Alliance (NA, 7.5%), followed closely by the opposition Harmony party (S, 7.3%). Among the top three, New Unity saw its share drop by a whole per cent, whereas for both Harmony and NA, the support has grown.

Another coalition party, For Development/For! (A/P 5.5%) is in the fourth spot, while the opposition Greens and Farmers Union (ZZS, 5.1%) remained fifth.

The Progressives (P, 4.5%) after having seen their support grow in June, went slightly down again but remained in the position. They are not currently represented in Saeima but now seem to have an opportunity.

The biggest growth in support was seen for the Latvian Russion Union (LKS, 3.8%), 'Latvia First' (LPV, 3.4%), the United list (AS, 3.3%) and Stability (S!, 2.9%). The biggest drop, on the other hand, was experienced by Conservatives (K, 2.4%).

In order to win seats in partliament, a party needs to attract at least 5% of ballots cast (not 5% of eligible votes!). According to SKDS/LTV's projections, if elections were held tomorrow, we could expect to see twelve parties represented.

However, all such predicitions are made in the shadow of one other important fact: the very high levels of voters who say they are yet to decide who to vote for (26.9%) and those who say they do not intend to vote at all (12.9%). Combined, that means around 40%  of the electorate can be considered "floating" and therefore likely to be the targets of politicians' powers of persuasion as election day looms.

 

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