Poll4 | ippogroup

Poll Results of May 9

The Vote to Elect the Iranian President

Hassan Rouhani has been the leading candidate in the past two days however his ratings are declining. Right now 51% of people who 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, have voted for Hassan Rouhani as their first choice in recent rounds of polls. For the 5% decrease in votes for Rouhani, Ebrahim Raisi has gained 9% in the past four days. The ratings of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf have not changed significantly. The three other candidates, Jahangiri, Mir-Salim and Hashemitaba are all scoring below %2 (see the above chart).

Based on the current polls margins of error (between 3 to 4 percent), it is early to speculate about the changes to patterns of ranking and vote percentages. The current developments in voting patterns show that 10 days to Election Day, one-third of the voters are still undecided and one-sixth of them have not expressed a clear opinion as to whom they will vote for (see the chart to the left).

Second Choice Voter Preferences

In the past four days respondents were asked: “if you were to change your minds before the Election Day, who else will you vote for instead of your first choice?” Two major changes are related to those who say that their second choice is Hassan Rouhani or that they do not vote for any other candidate. When compared to polls from the past two days, Rouhani is facing an 8% decline in this particular category. In the meanwhile, Ghalibaf has gained votes, standing at the 9% rating when it comes to the category of second choice candidate. It is noteworthy that the undecided vote has decreased and the number of those who say they do not have a second choice candidate has increased.

The Most Unfavorable Candidate

Most respondents still prefer not to indicate which candidate is so unfavorable that they will not vote for him under any circumstances. In other words, almost 50% of the respondents either say that no one among the candidates is the most unpopular or that they cannot or do not wish to name the most unfavorable candidate.
The ranking for the most unfavorable candidate is similar to the ranking of the most favorable candidate. The highest rating of unfavorability is of Hassan Rouhani with 9% and after him Ghalibaf (4%) and Raisi (%4). Jahangiri with less that 1% of the unpopularity vote continues to stands as the least unfavorable candidate.

Respondents’ Prediction of Candidates’ Victory

Respondents’ forecasting of the election results will portray the election milieu and distinguish between respondents’ own inclination and he or she’s predictions of the final outcome.
The pattern of respondents’ prediction of the election outcome has changed slightly compared to the past days. Respondents still predict Rouhani as having a greater chance of being the next Iranian president; however, Raisi’s rating in this category has surpassed Ghalibaf’s. That is more respondents now predict Raisi will be president when compared to Ghalibaf. Nearly 40% of respondents say that they do not or cannot predict the election outcome.

Respondents’ Prediction vs. Inclination towards a Candidate

Respondents’ predictions about a particular candidate as having a winning chance, do not differ much from their inclination towards candidates. However, the ratio of respondents that are predicting Rouhani as the winner is decreasing. In contrast, those who are predicting Raisi as the next Iranian president are increasing in numbers.
This chart demonstrates the distance between the ratios of respondents who say they vote for a particular candidate versus the ratio of those who predict that particular candidate’s victory. In the coming days IPPO will publish more analysis on the ratio of respondents’ prediction contra inclination towards a candidate.

Voter Turnout

The rates of participants who are going to vote have remained more or less the same in the past few rounds of surveys. Around 72% of respondents say they are likely or very likely to vote in the May 2017 presidential election. In contrast, 14% say there is little chance or very little chance that they will participate in the elections. Besides the 7% of respondents that say they are somewhat likely to participate in the elections, 5% 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.

Following Presidential Debates

Following of the presidential debates continues to divides the respondents to two groups of relatively same weight. About half of the respondents say they have followed the election debates and half of them say that they have not been following the debates. 49% of respondents have watched the debates and 3% of them have listened to the audio broadcasting of the debates.

The Most Important Problems and Priorities

In order to have an understanding of the priorities of issues that the prospective president should tackle, we asked the respondents: “if you were the president what would be the first problem facing the country that you will take on?”
As expected, the first ranking issue that about 37%respondents mentioned is the problem of unemployment. Next are the problems that the youth face with concerns of the 18% of the respondents. Economic issues, including inflation and high costs of living ranks third in the set of priorities that the respondents mentioned.

Survey Methodology:

This polling was carried out at a national level in Iran from 6 May 2017 to 9 May 2017 and reported on a four-day rolling average basis.

The interviews were conducted via phone (cellular phone and landline).

The sample size was 1189 Iranians, 18 years and older, who were residing in Iran and were selected randomly.

Sampling methodology is a two-stage proportional sampling. In the first stage the provinces were divided in three groups based on Human Development Index (HDI). Within each group with similar HDI, simple random sampling was used to choose respondents.

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 ±3.82 for the 95% confidence interval (based on responses to questions).

This survey collects data on five demographic variables (including gender, age, education, province of residence, urban and rural residency).

The data were weighted based on the last 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.

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 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 (in total five respondents were removed from the random sample).

You can see the PDF format

Poll Result of May 9

فارسی