Misco’s survey breaks down where the country’s leaders are strongest and where they are weakest.

Abela outflanks Grech in every single age cohort but interestingly enjoys most popularity at either end of the spectrum – with 60% of voters aged 12-24 and 55.9% of those older than 60 giving him a score between 5 to 10.

The Prime Minister failed to exceed 50% in the other cohorts and is least popular among those aged 55-64, where 33.6% gave him a ‘pass mark’.

Conversely, Grech performed best among 55-64 year olds, although with only 25.2% of these people giving him a score higher than 5, his highest age cohort rating still trails the Prime Minister’s worst.

Grech scored worst among people aged 25-35, where a miserable 8.8% gave him a ‘pass mark’.

In terms of towns and villages, Abela is boosted by strong support in the Southern Harbour Region, where 66.4% of people from the area gave him a score higher than 5.

It is the only region that gave the PM a ‘pass mark’ besides the South Eastern Region (50.8%) but crucially the Prime Minister once again does better than the Opposition Leader in every single region.

Grech performed best in Gozo, where 17.5% gave him a score higher than 5 and worst in the South Eastern region, where only 12.5% gave him such a score.

In what should come as a major concern to the Nationalist Party, only 31% of people who voted PN at the 2022 election give Grech a rating higher than 5, with only 15.3% giving him an 8, 9 or a 10.

Meanwhile, 35.8% of PN voters give him a 1, 2 or 3.

He has hardly been able to capitalise on support from elsewhere either, with only 7.6% of PL voters, 14% of ADPD voters, 11.9% of people who voted for other parties, and 6% of non-voters giving him a rating higher than 5.

Abela gets a 5+ score from 75% of people who voted PL in 2022, with 49.8% of PL voters giving him an 8, 9 or 10.

He also got that score from 15.1% of PN voters, 15.7% of ADPD voters, 11.9% of voters from other parties and 30.4% of non-voters.

With the 2022 election producing the lowest voter turnout (86%) since 1966, all parties will be looking at non-voters as a crucial cohort.

However, while Abela can take some solace in the fact that he is way more popular than Grech among these people, the survey indicates both parties are struggling to convince them to turn to their sides.

Only 4.5% of people who stayed home last March said they regret this decision, compared to 14.9% of those who cast a vote.

Asked which party they would vote for if an election were to be held tomorrow, 35.7% of people said they wouldn’t vote at all, which would indicate a massive 22 percentage point increase of non-voters from the 2022 election.

Meanwhile, 28.7% said they would vote for PL, 22.3% would vote for PN 6.8% would vote for ADPD and 2.9% would vote for a small party. These results could be seen as a boost for small parties, which have struggled badly at Maltese elections in recent decades.

60.3% of people who voted for PL at the last election and 60.3% of people who voted for PN intend to stick with the same party. A mere 1.4% of PL voters intend to switch to PN, while 3.1% plan to move to ADPD and 29.1% said they won’t vote at all.

PN is on course to lose 0.9% of its 2022 voters to PL, 7% to ADPD and 3% to other parties, while 28.2% said they will stay at home.

Misco’s survey was conducted among a random sample of 424 respondents, with people selected from the consultancy firm’s proprietary online panel, which was created using random probability sampling in accordance with best practices.

Interviews were conducted using an online methodology and data was weighted according to age, gender and region to bring the results in line with what is known about the Maltese population.

Cover photo: Left: Opposition Leader Bernard Grech, Right: Prime Minister Robert Abela

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