It can hardly get any better for Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa. His Socialist Party (SP) leads in this weekend’s twin monthly polls by 10 and 17 percentage points, closing on an overall majority of voting intentions once undecided electors and ‘blank’ votes are excluded.
Perhaps even more significantly, his own personal ratings have hit record levels on certain questions. In Aximage’s poll published last night, he has an extraordinary ‘confidence’ rating on the classic ‘best Prime Minister’ question of 67.5 per cent, his best since winning the October 2015 General Election when it already stood at 50.8 per cent – 18 points above his party’s result. Meanwhile Costa’s Social Democrat (PSD) rival, Pedro Passos Coelho, is down to 24.1 per cent, compared to 38.8 per cent at the election.
On Aximage’s monthly ‘index of expectations’ , measuring overall government performance, Costa’s administration again achieves its best score since the election, with a positive rating of 62, up 3 points since March. And whereas last month a very healthy 46.2 per cent of respondents said the government is exceeding their expectations, for April that figure rises again to 50.4 per cent (40.1 equalling expectations, 8.6 below expectations, 0.9 no opinion).
Life must be very frustrating for the opposition SDP. With Aximage, they are at their lowest score since the General Election. With Eurosondagem, who released their poll on Friday, they have managed to gain half a percentage point, only to see the SP put on double that. Eurosondagem also measures leader popularity, and here the SDP’s Passos Coelho improves in April by 1.6 points to a net positive rating of 11.9 per cent. However, he is put in the shade by Costa at a net plus of 33.5 per cent, also up by … 1.7 points.
Other party preferences are not materially changed, although the Christian Democrats (CDS) lose ground slightly in both polls.
EUROSONDAGEM
Voting intentions, per cent (change on 10 March poll)
Socialist Party * (PS) 39.3 (+1.0)
Social Democratic Party (PSD) 29.3 (+0.5)
Left Bloc * (BE) 9.0 (-0.2)
Communist-Green Coalition * (CDU) 7.5 (-0.5)
Christian Democrats/People’s Party (CDS/PP) 6.4 (-0.8)
Others / “blank” vote 8.5 (nc)
* Denotes current coalition government member
Fieldwork: 30.03-05.04.2017. Released: 07.04.2017. Participants: 1003. Methodology: Telephone poll. Media partner: Expresso. Report on the Expresso website here.
AXIMAGE
Voting intentions, per cent (change on 10 March poll)
Socialist Party * (PS) 42.0 (+0.3)
Social Democratic Party (PSD) 24.6 (-1.4)
Left Bloc * (BE) 9.5 (+0.3)
Communist-Green Coalition * (CDU) 7.6 (+0.8)
Christian Democrats/People’s Party (CDS/PP) 4.8 (-0.5)
Others / “blank” vote/ unsure 11.5 (+0.5)
* Denotes current coalition government member
Fieldwork: 02.04-04.04.2017. Released: 08.04.2017. Participants: 600. Methodology: Telephone poll. Media partners: Correio da Manha, Negocios.
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