Poll: PS closer to absolute majority

António Costa’s PS counts with 43.2% of voters’ intention for the October’s general elections, according to a Pitagórica’s poll published by Jornal de Notícias and TSF. The socialists managed to distance themselves even further from PSD as the social-democrats are stuck with just 21.6% of the voters’ intention – less 11% than in 2015.

Looking at the Portuguese elections’ history, these surveys might be not enough to confirm António Costa’s absolute majority in parliament, but they can certainly tell us the prime minister is now closer than ever. Recall than only Jose Socrates was able to get an absolute majority for PS in 2005 with 45% of the votes as Guterres failed to reach it in 1999 for just one MP.

Besides PS and PSD, Left Bloc is consolidating its place as the third party leading the Portuguese voters’ intentions with 9.2%, followed by PCP (the Portuguese Communist Party) with 6.8%, CDS (the Christian-Democrats) with 6% and PAN (‘People, Animals, Nature’, the new ecologist party) with 3.6%.

These surveys were done by phone between the 8th of July and the 14th of July to 800 people, giving a margin of error of +4%/-3.5% and a confidence level at 95%. 23.5% of voters remain undecided as 7.6% will make protest vote by voting blank or voting in smaller parties.