Eduardo Paladini
09/16/2021 8:24 AM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 09/16/2021 8:26 AM
A few minutes had passed since the closing of the voting this Sunday when an exit box began to circulate about the election in the province of Buenos Aires.
It gave a wide advantage to the list of the Front of All.
And it was not just another forecast.
It was
almost an "official" document
, since it was disseminated by the
CEOP
consultancy
,
owned by Roberto "Tito" Bacman,
one of the three consultants who measure for President Alberto Fernández
.
The pdf file, of just three pages, had a very clear cover:
"Poll in Boca de Urna - Paso 2021 - Province of Buenos Aires - 4th Court"
.
This last piece of information was essential: it was the finest forecast before the count started.
Clarín agreed to the
paper
, which gave 43.8% for Victoria Tolosa Paz against 35.9% for Juntos por el Cambio, for the sum of 23.2% of Diego Santilli's ballot and 12.7% of Facundo Manes's .
The "official" exit that gave 7.9 points above Tolosa Paz in the Province.
As this newspaper was able to reconstruct, this was
the fact that emboldened the main referents
of the national and provincial government to be confident that a Buenos Aires victory would be announced shortly.
CEOP's exit gate was mentioned in the informal talks and prior to the dissemination of the results.
In parallel, it is worth saying, other exit points had circulated
attributed -among others- to the head of Deputies, Sergio Massa, and to the Minister of Public Works, Gabriel Katopodis
.
Those polls on Sunday also spoke of an official advantage.
And to complete the menu, as
Clarín
was telling
during the same day,
Juntos por el Cambio itself spoke of a gap in favor of Tolosa Paz
, closer to 5 points.
Although there, from early on, some sources conveyed a contradictory optimism with those alleged numbers.
Everything, in an extreme caution, due to the disastrous experience of 2019.
Mauricio Macri still today asks that they not talk to him about polls
, since in the PASO of that year, also with the election closed, Jaime Durán Barba and from the consultants closest to macrismo -such as Isonomy- kept whispering about "parity" scenarios. ".
The duo of Cambiemos, it is recalled, ended on the day 16 points down.
The Kirchner case and the success for Córdoba
With slightly shorter margins, in the world of pollsters they
remember another "daring" of Bacman
. It was on June 28, 2009, during another painful defeat and in that irreversible case for Kirchnerism -there was no STEP-, when the ballot headed by Néstor Kirchner -with testimonial companions such as Daniel Scioli, Massa and even Nacha Guevara- was defeated by Francisco de Narváez and the then opponent Felipe Solá.
With the vote now closed, and as an unexpected spokesman for the Front for Victory in the bunker of the Intercontinental Hotel, Bacman maintained his prediction of Kirchner's victory.
In the first person, he somehow defended his own polls
, which days before spoke of an 8-point advantage for the K. A curiously similar number to the one he released this Sunday for Tolosa.
As a consolation for the pollster, in the PASO of 2019 in which almost all his colleagues erred, Bacman was the first that on the day of the election he
made it known that a landslide triumph for the Fernándezes was coming
.
According to this newspaper, around noon, and based on "data from the province of Córdoba," the head of CEOP began to speak of a comfortable victory.
And - at least that time - he was right.
The four cuts on Sunday, always with Tolosa on top
When the table of last Sunday is reviewed, the curious thing is that for CEOP -which in addition to Fernández measures for the unionist Victor Santa María-
the gap was widening during the day
.
- In the first cut, with 5,583 cases, Tolosa added 42.2% against 36% of Juntos (23.6% Santilli and 12.4% Manes): gap of 6.2 points.
. In the second cut, with 9,020 accumulated cases, Tolosa rose to 43.1% and Juntos to 36.3% (23.8% Santilli and 12.5% Manes): a distance of 6.8.
- In the third cut, with 13,630 accumulated cases, Tolosa grew again (to 43.6%) and Juntos fell again to 36% (23.1% Santilli and 12.9% Manes): difference of 7.6% .
- In the fourth and last cut, with 18,852 accumulated cases, the gap ended at the aforementioned 7.9: Tolosa 43.8% and Juntos 35.9% (Santilli 23.2% and Manes 12.7%).
How much did it go wrong?
Tolosa finished 10 points down (33.64%) and Juntos 2 up (37.99%).
Bacman fared better with "the rest": he had Del Caño at 5.6% (finished at 5.22%), Espert at 4.1% (he got 4.87%) and Randazzo at 4% (finished at 3.71%).
That is, taking into account the margin of error, he
hit everyone ... except who should be more precise
: his clients from the ruling party.
