Ratings: Reform continues steady hold over party support rankings

Reform Party continues its reign atop party support rankings, leaving Center Party and the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) far behind, the latest results of a survey conducted by pollster Norstat, shows.
Recent research Norstat conducted on behalf of conservative think-tank the Institute for Social Research (MTÜ Ühiskonnauuringute instituut) has Reform at 33.6 percent support, Center at 20.9 percent and EKRE at 18.8 of all voting-age respondents.
Reform, whose support climbed to its highest level since December 2019 at the start of March, has seen its support dwindle by 1.9 percentage points in the last month. At the same time, the party headed by Prime Minister Kaja Kallas continues as a steady leader in party support rankings and is 12.7 percentage points clear of second-place Center Party.
The top three are followed by non-parliamentary Eesti 200 at 11.4 percent, the Social Democratic Party (SDE) at 6.2 percent and Isamaa with 5.4 percent of support.
54.5 percent of survey respondents support the two coalition parties (Reform and Center) and 30.4 percent support the three opposition parties (EKRE, SDE and Isamaa).
Martin Mölder, a political scientist at the University of Tartu, pointed out that the gap between Reform and Center has seen a slow, but steady decrease over the last month. The gap between the top two in support has fallen from 18 percentage points to start March to 13 percentage points now, in the first week of April.
"The recent rise in Center's ratings stems from their support growing among Russian voters and as recent surveys show, in Ida-Viru County before all. Center's support among Estonians has not increased and remains below 15 percent. At the same time, the party's support among Russian-speaking voters has grown to above 57 percent," Mölder noted.
Center's support now stands at about the same level it was in the fall of 2020, but does not come close to what it was during its highest - some 70 percent.
"Third-place EKRE's support is currently slightly below 19 percent and it seems to have stabilized around 11-12 percent among Russian-language voters. This extraordinarily high level makes EKRE the second-most popular party after Center," Mölder added.
Isamaa and SDE, at the bottom of the table, have stabilized just above the electoral threshold of 5 percent and are practically equal in support with the gap between the two parliamentary parties remaining below 1 percentage point for the last few weeks, the scientist added.
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Editor: Kristjan Kallaste