Parties targeting crucial undecided vote
With European elections looming, recent poll suggests that ‘gray zone’ amounts to 12.5 percent
Deploying different strategies in the run-up to the June 9 European Parliament elections, political party staff are seeking to tap into the so-called “gray zone” of voters recorded by a recent poll conducted by the Pulse company.
These voters – amounting to an impressive 12.5% of the electorate – include those who said they were undecided or refused to answer what they would vote for, as well as those who said they would cast a blank or invalid ballot or abstain altogether from the electoral process.
The majority, 55-60%, are under the age of 45 and most identify as right-wing, center-right or center-left.
Around a third (35%) said they will definitely go to the polls. Three in 10 will cast their ballot by evaluating people and proposals. Two in 10 prefer punitive voting as a criterion, while one in 10 will probably vote the same way again as in the previous election.
Given the above it is perhaps easier for party staffs to persuade a prospective voter to abandon disengagement and indecision than to move from one party to another – particularly as the elections gets closer and parties rally their bases.
The results show that the largest leakage to the gray zone (25%) is from ruling New Democracy and mainly to its right.
Further analysis shows that the major leak is in northern Greece, where the party has thrown a lot of weight strategically and politically lately as demonstrated by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ continuous tours. The goal is not only that this specific category does not move to other right-wing parties – but above all that there is also a percentage that will repatriate, something particularly critical for New Democracy to reach the target it has set of 33%.
The undecided voters who come from SYRIZA may not be significant in terms of size but the leftist party is well aware that percentages of the order of 2-3% will be critical to overall impressions. It is different for the party’s percentage to fluctuate at 14.5% compared to around 17%. This is why the party is focusing its attention on the undecided voters of the radical space that lean toward the New Left party.
For their part, socialist PASOK officials believe that many of the undecided voters derive from the party’s old voters at the time of PASOK’s omnipotence, who strayed over the years.
