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NEWS ANALYSIS 8 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 14 JULY 2021 JAMES DEBONO THE best hope for a party to catch up in the polls is to win over voters who are present- ly undecided or intent on not voting. And on a national level, with one in every five belong- ing to that category, the PN can still narrow the gap if it wins over a substantial chunk of these voters. But in this sense the indica- tions coming from MaltaTo- day's latest survey are negative for the PN. For within those demograph- ic groups with the highest per- centage of non-committed vot- ers it is Labour, and not the PN, which is best poised to make further gains. The groups with the high- est percentage of such voters include those younger than 50, post-secondary educated voters, and those living in the urbanised north harbour and western regions. In all these strategic cohorts, it is Prime Minister Robert Abela who is stronger than his party by a considerable margin. For ex- ample, while among 18-to-34 year-olds the PL leads the PN by just 4 points within the same group of young voters Abela leads by a staggering 19 points. And while the survey shows the PN leading in four de- mographic cohorts namely residents of the north, north harbour and western regions and among those with a ter- tiary education, Abela is only slightly beaten by Grech in the northern region. In the north harbour region, which con- tains major urban centres like Qormi, Birkirkara and Sliema where the PN leads by 4 points, Abela still leads by 7 points. The situation is even more pronounced in the western dis- tricts where the PN leads by less than a percentage point, while Abela's trust rating leads by 11 points. Even among vot- ers with a university degree, while the PN leads by 9 points, Abela leads by 4 points. This is particularly significant as the tertiary-educated cohort was one where Grech was leading over Abela in a number of past surveys. Reversed trajectories The main reason for this is that while Abela is 7 points more popular than his own party, PN leader Bernard Grech is 2 points less popular than his party. This represents an enormous handicap in the PN's recovery strategy. One essential peg for any recovery plan is the stage where voters start warming up to the party leader before deciding to vote for the party he represents. Following this trajectory, Grech would have first reunit- ed his base as he did in the first surveys after his election as PN leader, than would have expe- rienced a surge of popularity among voters still reluctant to vote PN, before convincing these voters that they can also trust the party he leads. Surely the situation would have been far worse had Adri- an Delia remained leader, as the party would not even have managed to complete the first stage of this trajectory, that of reuniting the PN's base. But it is now clear that Grech has lost steam after some pro- gress in his initial months. And while the PN's recovery is stalled, the opposite pro- Robert Abela is now Labour's greatest asset Robert Abela is much stronger than Labour in key demographic cohorts which have the largest percentage of undecided voters or non-voters. Can it mean Labour could win with an even larger margin than 2017 in a forthcoming election? Gap between parties and leaders in demographics where more than one fifth of respondents are either undecided or intent on not voting Non-committed Voters* Gap between Gap between parties leaders 18-34 26.2% PL 4.3% Abela 18.9% 36-50 28.4% PL 16.6% Abela 27.7% Post-secondary 24% PL14.7% Abela 31.1% Tertiary 24.5% PN 8.7% Abela 3.5% North Harbour 25.5% PN 4.3% Abela 6.7% Western District 22.2% PN 0.4% Abela 10.9% Non-voters in 2017 61.7% PL 0.9% Abela 20.1% * Includes non-voters and undecided voters Many would be tempted to blame the ineptitude of the PN and its leaders. But this is only part of the answer. The major reason has to do with Abela himself... he has found a way to balance his appeal with both Labour's core vote, while retaining his appeal among PN leaning voters

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