Eduardo Paladini
09/06/2021 18:02
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 09/06/2021 18:02
With the same intensity with which a large sector of the population celebrated the overwhelming victory of the Frente de Todos on the night of August 11, 2019, another part of society was
surprised and angry
with the pollsters who had predicted a much more victory. bounded.
In round numbers, the average of the consultants until the day of the election gave a gap of 4 points in favor of the Fernándezes.
It ended in 16.
Immediately the conjectures began about the reasons for such a mistake and although even today there is no single conclusion, there is a coincidence:
the massive support for the new Kirchnerism of very poor sectors and of the young had not been considered
. A kind of
hidden vote
that the polls had basically omitted due to a methodological question: these were groups that could only be detected with face-to-face surveys when the majority, due to a question of costs, favored telephone ones.
Less than a week before
STEP 2021
, the doubt reappears strongly.
Could there be support for the Frente de Todos once again that the surveys are not calibrating in their proper measure?
Clarín
spoke with
nine pollsters
to try to clarify the question. Clues emerge, but not conclusive certainties. Logical: with the last antecedent, everyone opens the statistical umbrella. And some even ask for reservation of name to leave their testimony.
The
choice of consultants was not whimsical
.
Among others,
Clarín
asked one of the consultants who best predicted the PASO, which best predicted the general election, two of the analysts closest to President Alberto Fernández, one who measures for Cristina and Máximo Kirchner, three that work for both sides of the rift and another that got it right with great precision in the most recent elections.
Starting point: what the latest polls say
Before entering the analysis of the specialists, it is worth a review of
the last photo of the electoral polls
.
Both nationally and in the province of Buenos Aires there is such a wide dispersion of numbers that, it is assumed, some should be right.
- Out of
eight surveys at the country level
that this newspaper was able to access in recent weeks,
four predict a triumph for the ruling party
;
one sees a
technical
draw
; and
the remaining three rank Juntos por el Cambio at the top
. All with a level of undecided from 10 to 25 points and a generalized coincidence: in no case do pollsters see a distance of 16 points for the FdT as in PASO 2019 and not even 8 as in the general.
- Regarding the
Buenos Aires scenario
, out of
12 recent studies
,
five
show an
advantage
of the
only list of the Frente de Todos
,
four
a
technical tie
and the
remaining
three
place the sum of the two ballots of
Juntos por el Cambio ahead
.
Again, no one glimpses the beating that the Fernándezes gave Macri-Pichetto (16.31 points up) or Axel Kicillof gave María Eugenia Vidal (12.71) in October 2019 in provincial territory.
The pollsters of the ruling party
Regarding the current scenario, there is no unanimity even among the consultants closest to the President.
Clarín
spoke with two of them, who requested that their names be reserved.
"
In 2019 there were no hidden votes!
There was one thing measured for the ass of the gentlemen who used the IVR (the automatic telephone survey system). Today I do not have national numbers, but I
tend to believe that they will both be punished
, the FdT and Cambiemos, with a polarization of 70-something percent, and with the appearance of third forces
".
The
other consultant close to the President adds to the debate
. "I do not see a massive hidden vote. As in 2019, there may be support for the Frente de Todos that only the face-to-face detect, but it
is clear that the support is lower. The social humor hits, it is another world
. In a poll in the Conurbano gave me 10 points of advantage for the FdT and that is not enough to compensate the interior. Or even if in the Province it ends up winning only by three or four, the Government loses the national one. "
"Besides," he continues, "many believe that Together for Change can be deflated when there is only one list left. But Manes will be on that only list. In his own way, but he will be.
I see a pessimistic vote from the Frente de Todos , that now he can go to Randazzo
. Or he is undecided, but he does not return to the Front of All ".
A
third pollster from the ruling party
, linked to the Instituto Patria, shows some confusion: "The latest measurements gave the FdT between 5 and 10 points above, but we must see. There is a
lot of discontent in the Conurbano
. The money is not enough, there is a lot of insecurity . You have to see how that hits. And how the apparatus is mobilized on election day. I am not so clear if absenteeism will only affect Together for Change. If people now ask you for money to go to a march, right Is he going to ask you to vote? ".
The same consultant adds an economic / social data
.
"Poor country, poor surveys. A face-to-face case costs 2,000 pesos. Who is going to pay you four million for a survey of 2,000 cases? Cheap surveys are made, by telephone or online, from 100 to 200 pesos the case, but they are not reliable ".
More doubts about the methodology
Another interviewer with clients in the FdT and JxC, who also asks for a name reservation, joins this idea.
"Just as the
IVRs
showed that they were not useful for the previous election, the
same will happen
with the
online ones
for this election," he evaluates.
He does believe that again there may be a hidden vote for the ruling party.
"
Online polls have the same bias as the IVRs and underestimate the Peronist vote - he continues -
. I did an
online
job
that gives me 30-odd to 30-odd nationally. But I don't know if the Frente de Todos will not be in 40-something actually. It happened to me to measure with the two methodologies and that the face-to-face, which is the most accurate, gave me the Peronists much higher. "
Cordovan
Cristian Buttie
, director of
CB Consultant Public Opinion
, is one of the next measuring
online
. And he was very accurate in the last two provincial elections: Jujuy and Corrientes. He assures that with a "micro-segmentation of the sample, all representation quotas (sex, age, socioeconomic level, areas) can be met."
And regarding the
Clarín
query
, he replied: "Particularly in this instance of PASO
we do not see a hidden vote that the Government can capitalize
. We do see a loyal vote that is not expressed as much as in 2019. At that time, their objective was to return to the government and remove Macri from power. It went from being an active hard core to being a cautious core, mainly because they do not have significant achievements in management to convince their peers. "
Shila Vilker
, from
Trespuntozero
, was the one who best predicted the general of 2019, when the gap narrowed from 16 to 8 points and the majority predicted that it would widen to 20.
Could there be an official vote that is not being seen?
"I don't see it. In fact, we had been doing several
focus groups
to that 20% of voters from the Frente de Todos who badly value the management ... They are dissatisfied with various gradations, but they have in common that they do not want to return. At least for now" , evaluate.
And he concludes: "I would say that the contour of the election in the Province is at
least a decrease of 20% (that is, 9/10 points less than the total electoral roll) for the ruling party
. These people want to express their disagreement or want to lower the blind on the election. And he has no problem expressing his position. The question is how much less outside of that segment, which is very clear, the Frente de Todos can fall ".
The anger and surprise of repeat offenders
Mariel Fornoni
, from
Management & Fit
, adds an element that also appears in many debates.
The anger of the people and the doubt of how it will affect the election.
"I do not know if there is a hidden vote in favor of the Government, but there is a lot of anger. There are people who ask you and say 'I am not going to answer who I am going to vote for.'
It does not seem that it was in favor of the Government, but rather otherwise
".
"There are also other phenomena, such as that linked to attendance. Older adults, who are more likely to vote for the opposition, and perhaps are more afraid of going to vote in a pandemic. And that may favor the ruling party. But there are also angry young people who can go and vote blank.
It is difficult to ponder all that.
What we see in general is that the difference in favor of the ruling party narrowed.
And other indicators, such as discharge approval, have been falling,
"adds Fornoni.
For
Facundo Nejamkis
, from
Opina Argentina
, "Something has to be happening with
the Peronist vote that does not appear in the polls
(between 8 and 12 points approximately). It is the unknown of this election. In 2019 it had a logic that would agglutinate to remove Macri. The only possibility now is that he has an understanding of the phenomenon of the pandemic and that renews the credit to the Government. Common sense would indicate otherwise. "
Lucas Romero
, from
Synopsis
, talks about four possible "surprises." "One would be a
repeat vote, understanding that one relapses into something that is malfunctioning
. There, one includes a segment of voters from the Frente de Todos who is undecided. We see that more than half of the undecided, both nationally and in Province, they are voters of the ruling party. That is not attracted by an opposition option, "he says.
"The Government, especially after the photo of Olivos, points there. That is why it shakes the ghost of Macri. If it works, it can improve its chances. In Province
there are 12 undecided points and just over half (6 points in total) are 2019 voters of the Frente de Todos
. If he recovers them, it would be an important leap, "adds Romero.
And he continues: "Against the Government, there
may be an advancement of the useful vote
. That the people, from what they see in the media, perceive in the Province that the fight is even and perhaps it is an incentive for those who are inclined to vote for Espert and now join Together for Change. And vice versa, there may be a strategic vote for the Government.
We are seeing something of this advance, with the third forces stagnant
. "
"Another phenomenon, which we see with less force, is that there is
a rough vote towards options that come almost from outside politics, like Espert
. Today I have it more in 6 points than above 10, as it seemed at some point. And for Last is absenteeism, which if it is high should favor the ruling party, "he closes.