Exclusive: The Alex Effect – Trust Gap Between Leaders Lowest In Two Decades
The trust rating gap between Malta’s political leaders is the lowest it has been since 2008, although Alex Borg’s gains for PN have not come at Robert Abela’s expense, a new survey by Vincent Marmarà for Lovin Malta has found.
Borg’s gains aren’t coming at Abela’s cost as the Prime Minister improved his trust rating by 4.7 points (from 37.8% to 42.5%) since February.
The survey, the first since Alex Borg was elected PN leader, was carried out among a sample of 1,200 people between 25th September and 1st October.
Asked who they trust most out of Malta’s two political leaders, 42.5% said they trust Robert Abela, while 34.4% said they trust Alex Borg.
The gap of 8.1 points is the lowest it has been since 2008.
In Marmarà’s last trust rating last February, the gap between Abela and then Opposition Leader Bernard Grech stood at 13.2 points.
Borg’s gains aren’t coming at Abela’s cost as the Prime Minister improved his trust rating by 4.7 points (from 37.8% to 42.5%) since February.
However, the PN leader’s trust rating of 34.4% is almost ten percentage points higher than the 24.6% Grech acquired last February.
Among 2022 PL voters, 83.6% said they trust Abela, up from 76.1% last February, indicating that the PL leader has solidified support among his base.
Meanwhile, 2.5% of PL voters said they trust Borg, slightly up from the 2.1% who said they trust Grech in February.
6.7% said they trust other leaders (down from 11.3%), 0.8% said they don’t trust anyone (down from 4.6%), and 6.4% said they don’t know (up from 5.8%).
Among 2022 PN voters, 90.5% said they trust Borg, representing a massive 27-point increase from the PN voters who said they trust Grech last February (63.5%).
Not a single PN voter said that they trust Abela (down from 1.2% last February) or that they don’t trust anyone (down from 17.1%).
Only 1.9% said they trust other leaders (down from 12.9%), while 7.6% said they don’t know (down from 5.3%).
The survey results show that Borg has managed to shore up support among his own base very quickly, despite only beating Adrian Delia by a razor-thin majority of 44 votes in last month’s leadership election.
However, he hasn’t yet made much of an impact among PL voters, with Abela also gaining support among his base, albeit at a slower rate.
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