Survey - PSD leads, AUR closes in on PNL

The political scene is undergoing some minor adjustments this autumn, with opinion polls allowing for slight realignments within parties and possible alliances. PSD (Social Democratic Party) maintains its lead and has not been "eroded" by governance, though the same cannot be said for PNL (National Liberal Party). The longstanding issue of voter absenteeism persists, even though there is a higher interest in voting than in previous years. Half of those questioned in a national opinion poll conducted by INSCOP, commissioned by News.ro, state that they would definitely vote in parliamentary elections. PSD is leading in voting intentions at 31%, followed by PNL and AUR in that order. Notably, the difference between PNL and AUR is less than 1%. Almost a quarter of respondents say they would definitely not vote. In the case of the entire sample, including all voters, whether they intend to vote or not but have declared a preference for one of the parties included in the parliamentary election question, PSD remains in the first place with 29.1% of preferences. However, the second position goes to AUR, with PNL trailing by over 2 percentage points. USR receives 12% in the first scenario and 11.6% in the second. "PSD and PNL obtain slightly better scores among highly motivated voters, while AUR gets better scores among voters who have a political preference, regardless of how motivated they are," notes Remus Ştefureac, the CEO of INSCOP Research. Half of those questioned in the poll state that they would definitely vote if parliamentary elections were to take place next Sunday, but almost a quarter of them declare that they would definitely not exercise their right to vote.

The intention to vote was evaluated on a scale from 1 (definitely NO) to 10 (definitely YES), with the question being: "If parliamentary elections were to take place next Sunday, how certain are you that you would go and vote?" On this scale, where 1 means "definitely not," and 10 means "definitely yes," 23.7% of Romanians chose 1, 1.8% chose 2, 1.7% chose 3, 1.8% chose 4, 6.8% chose 5, 1.8% chose 6, 2.7% chose 7, 5.3% chose 8, 2.5% chose 9, and 50.1% chose 10. The proportion of those who chose 10 - definitely YES is very high compared to the actual turnout in previous elections.

Regarding voting intentions, the question focused on a fixed list of parties, asking: "If parliamentary elections were to take place next Sunday, and the following political parties/ alliances were to participate, which party/alliance's candidates would you vote for?" Among the respondents who expressed a preference for a party on the list and declared that they would definitely vote (37.8% of the sample), 31% would vote for PSD, 20.4% for PNL, 19.7% for AUR, and 12% for USR. UDMR receives 4.6%, SOS 3.1%, the Green Party 2.7%, PMP 1.7%, Pro Romania 1.5%, Force of the Right 1%, REPER 0.7%, and other parties 1.6%. For respondents who only opted for a party from the list, regardless of whether they stated they would vote or not, and excluding the undecided, the choices were as follows: PSD - 29.1%, AUR - 22.4%, PNL - 20.4%, USR - 11%, while other parties remained below the electoral threshold of 5% needed to enter Parliament. Remus Ştefureac, CEO of INSCOP Research, explained, "INSCOP Research has decided to transparently publish the voting intention reported by two distinct categories of respondents: the so-called highly motivated voters, meaning respondents who choose a party from the list and declare that they would definitely vote, without including the undecided and non-responses (37.8% of the total sample), and respondents who choose a party from the list, regardless of whether they declare that they will definitely vote or not, without including the undecided and non-responses (63.8% of the total sample). What we observe from the data is that PSD and PNL obtain slightly better scores among highly motivated voters, while AUR gets better scores among voters who have a political preference, regardless of how motivated they are. At this moment, we cannot speak of very clear trends in the evolution/devolution of voting intention. In the coming months, the shaping of these trends will largely depend on how the population assesses the state of the economy, prices, as well as major policies such as those related to taxes, salaries, or pensions. Additionally, factors outside the scope of government policies, such as corruption cases or unforeseen crises, will also play an important role in the evolution of voting intention." The opinion poll was conducted by INSCOP Research, commissioned by News.ro, and the data was collected from September 15th to 22nd, using the CATI method (telephone interviews). The sample size was 1550 individuals, stratified and representative of significant sociodemographic categories (gender, age, occupation) for the non-institutionalized population of Romania, aged 18 and above. The maximum margin of error for the data is ± 2.49%, with a confidence level of 95%.