Petro or Hernández: What Do Polls Say with 2nd Round Days Away

In accordance with Colombian electoral legislation, Colombians will not receive any more surveys regarding which candidate they intend to vote for in the upcoming June 19 second-round elections. The polls which have been publicized up until now report that different candidates are projected to win. However, they all show that these will be the most hard-fought elections in Colombia’s recent history.

The candidates who will face off in the second round, Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernández, are just inches away from each other in a plebiscite which will decide the successor of Iván Duque, on Sunday, June 19.

On Sunday, June 12, the electoral ban on polling began, due to the fact that under Colombian law, foreign nationals can vote via Colombian consulates during several days. The Colombian consulate in New Zealand was the first to accept ballots, officially kicking off the electoral process.

Apart from prohibiting all forms of political propaganda outside of the established time periods, the ban establishes that opinion polls cannot continue to publicize results from voting-intention surveys.

What do the last polls say?
The relative advantage of one candidate or the other varies depending on the polling company in question, yet they all agree that no candidate can be considered to have an outright lead.

The key to all this might lie in the margin of error of each poll. The surveys published by Guarumo-EcoAnalítica and GAD3 give Hernández a slight advantage, while YanHass and the Ponderadora de encuestas de la Silla Vacia [The Empty Chair Poll Evaluator] give a small advantage to Gustavo Petro.

Semáforo de encuestadoras de La Silla Vacía [Traffic Light of Surveyors of The Empty Chair] (June 12)

The independent news outlet La Silla Vacía has evaluated the polls, classifying them on a scale of 0 to 10 on the basis of the methodology used and the accuracy of their previous predictions. According to them, the projected results of the upcoming elections are as follows:

Gustavo Petro: 47.2%

Rodolfo Hernández: 46.5%

Blank votes: 5.4%

Does not know/no response: 0.9%.

Guarumo y EcoAnalítica (11 de junio)

Surveyor: El Tiempo newspaper

Rodolfo Hernández: 48.2%

Gustavo Petro: 46.5%

Margin of error: 2.5%

Methodology: 2,029 interviews from the June 6-9.

YanHass (11 de junio)

Surveyor: The news channel RCN

Gustavo Petro: 45%

Rodolfo Hernández: 35%

Voto en Blanco: 13%

Does not know/no response: 7%

Margin of error: 3,2%.

Methodology: 1,234 interviews in 60 townships from June 5-10

GAD3 (10 de junio)

Surveyors: RCN Radio, Noticias RCN news outlet, La FM radio station and La República newspaper

Gustavo Petro: 48.1% (previous polls: 45,1%)

Rodolfo Hernández: 46.8% (previous polls: 52.3%)

Blank vote: 5.1%

Margin of error: 1.4%

Methodology: 4,836 telephone interviews between the May 30-June 9.

Centro Nacional de Consultoría [National Consulting Center] (June 1)

Rodolfo Hernández: 41%

Gustavo Petro: 39%

Blank votes: 5%

Does not know/no response: 14%

Margin of error: 2.8%

Methodology: 1,200 telephone interviews in 43 townships conducted from May 30-31.

According to the polls, Gustavo Petro—who led the first presidential round with about 8.5 million, or 40.32% of the ballots cast in his favor—is likely to receive more votes in Bogotá, in the Caribbean regions, in the Colombian regions on the Pacific Ocean, and in areas that are less socioeconomically developed.

Rodolfo Hernández, whose campaign has presented him as the outsider candidate, received approximately, 5.9 million, or 28.15% of the votes. He is supported by Uribismo and by the former candidate Federico Gutiérrez. According to the polls he will receive more votes in the urban areas of the Eje Cafetero [the Coffee Axis], in Antioquia, in the north central and south central areas of the country, and among the upper classes of Colombian society.

(Sputnik News) with Orinoco Tribune Content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/KW/SL/EF