What the secret gallops show – The underground messages and party analyses

Stan Greenberg’s return to the Maximus Palace symbolizes, more than anything else, the return of numbers: poll numbers and qualitative data have their place on party staff conference tables – not just the “obvious” but the secret gallops, surveys and focus groups that are commissioned all the time these days and will never see the light of day. Now knowing the composition of the European ballots, these measurements lead to specific conclusions, essentially showing the points that will determine the outcome in the European elections in June.

The meaning of “None”

“Kanenas” entered the debate at a time when ND’s percentages were in continuous decline: the ace up the government’s sleeve, Kyriakos Mitsotakis himself, had suffered a personal blow, without however this discontent finding any other natural recipient – something which means that the audience resorting to this answer is not lost to the Maximus Palace in the first place. “No one”, as reflected in the most recent Metron Analysis poll, competes with Mitsotakis in the first place of the suitability index (with Mitsotakis winning by two points – 35% and 33% respectively). However, “None”, which results from spontaneous answers, is also an indicator for the opposition parties – especially for those who want to claim the role of the main opposition pole in 2027: its rise sends them the signal that they should, with the way they will choose, to raise the governability index. Confirming that, especially in the pre-election period, this is mainly a matter of a leading person.

The goal of rallies

What is the goal of the major opposition parties for this election? Those who went to the polls in last summer’s dual elections should go again – not a single vote should go to waste. That is why, especially in PASOK, in addition to exploratory approaches to new audiences, the effort in this phase is mainly based on the reactivation of the nuclei that brought double digits last summer, but also on the networks that were created in the largest urban centers in the self-governing elections. The example of Athens is indicative of Harilaou Trikoupis: the “soft vote” did not help the favorite, but on the contrary strengthened the momentum of the outsider, who eventually won at the ballot box. For the ND, based on the numbers it has at its disposal, a relaxed vote may also be useful – especially if it means that its disaffected traditionally right-wing voters prefer to stay at home. For both parties, the rally exceeds 70%, while SYRIZA has managed to be at the highest level of its rally since the summer and after (and given the departure of at least 1/3 of its voters), reaching close to 60% .

Commuting makes a difference

In the previous period, the government was looking for a way to seal the constant leakage that it had from the right, to smaller parties of the right-wing apartment building and mainly towards Kyriakos Velopoulos. Last week’s rise shows that the addition of Freddie Beleris to the Euro ballot has helped that cause – the Hellenic Solution’s share appears to have fallen in both the polls released and the party’s rolling counts, confirming that its upward trajectory has been halted. In SYRIZA, based on the data available to them, they know that their outflows to the New Left are neither increasing nor decreasing – everything that was to be lost, therefore, has been lost, while a channel that they have not managed to “close” is the one towards Zoi Konstantopoulou’s party, which in Metron Analysis wins 5.6% of the movements from the official opposition. The “corridor” that will determine the difference between the former and the latter also passes through the battle of the progressive Center, between ND and PASOK, where surveys show that although ND is ahead in this particular audience, PASOK, still and today, which has a purely oppositional approach, follows it closely. The “corridor”, however, has an important attitude, the Democrats of Andreas Loverdos: a week ago their inputs were equal from ND and PASOK – now they get more from the latter.

The “X” factor in SYRIZA

If there is one unsettled factor in the electoral equation, it is SYRIZA. First, because its presence, tactics and positioning are completely different under Stefanos Kasselakis and, secondly, because no one can accurately predict how this approach, even the re-emphasis of slogans like the extreme conservative “fatherland, religion, family”, wins new voters from unpredictable pools – or if, at the same time, it “dislodges” the traditional progressive voters who remained in the official opposition, balancing SYRIZA in close proximity to PASOK. However, Koumoundourou seeks to reach the percentage of the national elections by approaching the ideological spectrum horizontally, which is unprecedented experimentation. No matter how many focus groups have been conducted, they cannot explain if and to what extent it succeeds, because it also appeals to voters who do not often respond to surveys.

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