"The Two-tailed Dog Party has overtaken Momentum, Fidesz's popularity has continued to decline marginally, but the opposition still cannot come close to the governing parties with less than five months to go before the European Parliament and local elections," Telex reported on the latest research by the Republican Institute.
Key findings of the research:
The new year has not brought any major changes in party preferences. In January, Fidesz-KDNP is still the strongest party alliance, its popularity in the total population has decreased by 1 percentage point to 28%, while 43% of party voters would still vote for it.
The DK is the strongest opposition party, with 12 percent support among the total population and 19 percent among party voters, which is one percentage point higher than at the end of the year.
The popularity of Mi Hazánk has remained unchanged, with 6 percent of the total population and 9 percent of party voters voting for the party.
The MKKP's support among the total population remains at 5 percent, while it has increased by 1 percentage point, now it is 8 percent among party voters. This puts it ahead of Momentum.
Momentum still has 5 percent support in January among the total population and 7 percent among party voters.
The MSZP's popularity remained unchanged, with 3 percent of the total population and 5 percent of party voters voting for the party, meaning it would still get into parliament.
LMP's popularity fell by 1-1 percentage points in January to 2 and 4 percent respectively, meaning that if the parliamentary elections were held this Sunday, it would not enter parliament.
Jobbik is still on 2 percent of the total population, but has lost 1 percentage point among party voters, and 3 percent would vote for the party.
Párbeszéd's support increased by 1-1 percentage point in January, with 2 and 3 percent of voters voting for the party, meaning it is neck and neck with Jobbik.
The rate of undecided is still 34 percent
The first Hungarian double election will take place in less than 5 months after the government has synchronized the local and EP elections. However, the campaign is off to a slow start and, judging by the stagnation of party preferences, voters are not in the campaign mood either. Although the elections are coming closer, little is known about the candidates and lists, and many details of opposition cooperation remain unknown. Needless to say, the official campaign period has not yet begun, and the deadlines for lists and candidates are relatively far away, so we cannot expect everything to be clear, but voters are uncertain and waiting. In terms of support for opposition parties, the field does not yet seem to be naturally narrowing, with several smaller parties of measurable popularity, with minor fluctuations but a constant presence on the opposition side, whether it is Párbeszéd, which gained some strength at the beginning of the year, the much-diminished but persistent Jobbik, or LMP, which is hovering around the parliamentary threshold but just below it. The party preference of the voting population is built up in such a way that in addition to a narrow one-third of Fidesz-KDNP voters, there is a third of undecided voters who will most likely stay away from the ballot box in the double election, and the remaining one-third of opposition voters, who of course should not be lumped together, so even though the opposition parties have more voters, this does not mean that the opposition is on course to win; not to mention the dubious role of Mi Hazánk, the outsider status of the Kutyapárt, or the fact that not all opposition parties want to stand in the elections together with Jobbik or even DK.
Methodology: the survey was conducted by telephone interviews with 1000 people between 15 and 20 January. The survey is representative of the adult population of the country by gender, age, education and type of municipality.
Margin of error: +/- 3.2%.
The research presentation is available HERE!
Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.