Poll: Conservatives With Twice The Support Of Social Dems; Smaller Parties Doing Better

A new poll from Market and Media Research shows some intriguing results, albeit none that bode well for the current ruling coalition, with parliamentary elections some 10 months away.

The parties in the ruling coalition—led by the Left-Greens with the support of the Independence Party and the Progressive Party—have certainly seen better days. The Left-Greens are at 7.6% in the current poll, conducted from November 26th to December 3rd, virtually unchanged from last month’s poll, when they were at 7.5%. The Progressives are also at 7.6%, but this is down from 9.9% last month.

Meanwhile, as almost always, the Independence Party has the largest support of any party in the country, going from 25% to 27.1% between polls. This also gives them double the lead over the party which comes closest to them, the Social Democrats, who went from 16.7% to 13.8% today.

Other opposition parties showed mixed results. The Pirate Party went from 14.3% to 13.8% and the Reform Party went from 8.4% to 9.5%, while the Centre Party went from 9.1% to 7.0%.

However, the two smallest parties in Iceland also showed the most impressive upswing of support. The People’s Party went from 3.9% in the last poll to 6.2% today, showing a 37.1% increase between polls. Meanwhile, the Socialist Party went from 4.0% to 5.0%, showing a 25% increase in support. In both cases, one should bear in mind that the general threshold for gaining Parliament seats is 5%, which typically gives a party three of Parliament’s 63 seats.

While combined support for the ruling coalition parties is 42.3%, those polled who expressed support for the ruling coalition as a while were at 50%, down slightly from 51.7% in the last poll.

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