Poll Results of May 16
The Vote to Elect the Iranian President
The current data are from the iPPO polls that were conducted in the past two days; that includes the day Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf dropped out of the presidential race and the day after Ghalibaf’s withdrawal.
In the past two days, both Hassan Rouhani and Ebrahim Raisi’s votes have been increasing. The results show that Rouhani has gained 61% of the first choice votes of those respondents that say: 1) they will definitely or likely participate in the May 2017 election and 2) are inclined to vote for one of the six running candidates. After Rouhani, Raisi is the runner-up with 27% of the votes of respondents that say he is their first choice candidate.
Subsequent to Ghalibaf announcing that he has dropped out of the race, his votes among the respondents of the iPPO polls dropped to %10. Those who continue to mention Ghlaibaf’s name as their first choice candidate are respondents who are not aware of Ghalibaf’s withdrawal or respondents loyal to him that refuse to accept he is not on the ballot.
At this time more or less, a quarter of all respondents are still undecided voters. If we add the number of respondents who do not wish to disclose their votes to the number of undecided voters as well the number of respondents that do not choose a particular candidate on the ballots, three days to the election more than 50% of the respondents do not mention a specific candidate (see the chart below). Under these circumstances, it is still very difficult to forecast the election results.
Voter Turnout
The voter turnouts that participants have mentioned have remained more or less steady in the past 10 days. In the past two days, 72% of respondents say they are likely or very likely to vote in the May 2017 presidential election. In contrast, 15% say there is little chance or very little chance that they will participate in the elections. Besides the 9% of respondents that say they are somewhat likely to participate in the elections, 3% of the respondents have not yet reached a decision with regards to participation.
Projections of election participation rates in polls such as this one does not neatly translate to voter turnout rate on the day of the election. Projections of the voter turnout in polls are often more than the actual turnout on the day of the election; this is not unique to the Iranian context and is relevant to all pre-election polling.
Post Ghalibaf’s Drop Out: Development of Voting Patterns
Ghalibaf’s vote in the wake of him dropping out of the race has decreased 9% (from 19% before the announcement of his withdrawal to 10% after he dropped out). There are respondents who continue to name Ghalibaf as their candidate both knowing that he has dropped out and not knowing that he withdrew.
The decrease in Ghalibaf’s votes as well as the decrease in the undecided vote corresponds to an increase of 5% to Rouhani’s votes and 4% to Raisi’s votes at this time.
The Alternative Vote 1
Aside from the aforementioned patterns related to the “second choice candidate”, now that data has accumulated we can better respond to this question: “If the respondents were to change their decision until the Election Day, who seems to be the more likely second choice alternative?”
The results show that voters are more determined to vote for Hassan Rouhani. 23% of respondents say that they will not vote for any other candidate, except for Rouhani. The figures for those who will not vote for any other candidate except for Ghalibaf and Raisi are 16% and 13% respectively.
More so, 24% of those who chose Rouhani as their first choice are willing to vote for rival candidates Ghalibaf and Raisi. While 50% of Ghalibaf voters and 61% of Raisi voters are willing to vote for their first choice candidates’ opponent.
Overall, of the 25% of voters who are voting for Ghalibaf and Raisi, 36% are willing to vote for Rouhani as the alternative candidate.
15% of respondents who have chosen Rouhani as their first choice say that if they do not vote for Rouhani, they will vote for Ghalibaf. In contrast, 20% of Ghalibaf voters say if they do not vote for Ghalibaf, they will vote for Rouhani. 11% of Rouhani voters say that if they do not vote for him, they will vote for Raisi; while 16% of Raisi voters choose Rouhani as their second alternative vote.
Comparing alternative choices between Raisi and Ghalibaf’s voters: 44% of the Raisi voters choose Ghalibaf as their second alternative; yet 30% of Ghalibaf voters are willing to choose Raisi if they were not to vote for Ghalibaf.
The Alternative Vote 2
Overall, for 36% of the votes that Rouhani receives as an alternative candidate for Ghalibaf and Raiais, he gives %26 of his voters to the two opponents. In other words, the net balance of Rouhani’s votes in this category is +10%. Ghalibaf on the other hand receives only 50% of the voters from the pool of Rouhani and Raisi’s first choice voters while giving 59% of his voter to Rouhani and Raisi. In other words, the net balance of Ghalibaf’s votes, as a second choice alternative is -9%. Raisi also receives a negative balance of %10 percent. For every 51% of voters he loses to Ghalibaf and Rouhani in the second choice category, Raisi only receives 41% from the pool of Ghalibaf and Rouhani’s first choice ballots.
Survey Methodology:
- This polling was carried out at a national level in Iran from 15 May 2017 to 16 May 2017 and reported on a two-day rolling average basis.
- The interviews were conducted via phone. Interviewers were trained – both for general skills of phone polling and for the specific needs of this survey. The interviewers were selected post training after passing an interviewing skills exam.
- The sample size was 1194 Iranians, 18 years and older, who were residing in Iran and were selected randomly.
- Sampling methodology is a two-stage proportional sampling. It’s on the basis of each of the service operators’ market share and then simple random sampling.
- Assuming maximum variation, the results of this survey can generalize to the whole of the 18 years and older Iranian (resident in Iran) with a margin of error of ±2.83 to ±3.89 for the 95% confidence interval (based on responses to questions).
- The data were weighted based on the last available National Iranian Census (2011) with gender, age group and place of residence (urban/rural) as weighting variables.
- Farsi native speaking interviewers conducted the interviews during daylight hours, local time.
- The results of each interview was assessed twice by the interviewer and the supervising team – in terms of respondent’s trust in the interviewer and the interviewer’s assessment of the respondents’ honesty.
- Those respondents who had received very low scores for trust and honesty have been removed from the random sample.