Polls Show Hard Road Ahead For Davíð Oddsson

Two new polls show that the former conservative politician still has a ways to go if he intends to be President of Iceland.

As Davíð announced his presidential bid only yesterday, and the incumbent announced he was dropping out only hours ago, there is still a lot uncertain regarding who will be Iceland’s next president after June 25. While speculations had arisen that Davíð would siphon votes away from Ólafur, two new opinion polls indicate that Davíð is not exactly the assured frontrunner.

A new poll from Market and Media Research on who people would vote for if elections were held today was conducted from May 6 to 9. Davíð’s announcement arrived during the last day of polling, MMR says, and therefore only 27% of their respondent base was given Davíð as an option. Even so, the results are fairly clear.

According to the results, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson is the current favorite, with 59.2% of respondents saying they would vote for him. At the same time, Ólafur’s numbers fell from 52.6% in last month’s MMR poll to 25.3%, and support for Andri Snær Magnason went from 29.4% to 8.8%. Davíð Oddsson – even as an option to 27% of respondents – clocked in at 3.1%.

Even using generous estimates – whereby the percentage of respondents who had Davíð as an option is quadrupled to exceed 100%, and half of Ólafur’s voters are given to him – Davíð is still lagging far behind Guðni. At the same time, Guðni does have a head start of about 48 hours on Davíð.

A less scientific online poll from DV asked readers if they would consider voting for Davíð as President, and the results were also decidedly not in his favour. 71.8% said they would not consider voting for him, but 25.5% said they would. This is also reflected in a person-on-the-street poll conducted by Stöð 2 at the Kringlan shopping centre – most people interviewed there were less than happy with Davíð running.

Now that Ólafur is out of the race, and Andri Snær is falling far behind, the contest essentially comes down to Guðni and Davíð. The next six weeks will show how their respective campaigns pan out.