Center Party's ratings down to 10 percent in latest Norstat weekly poll

In the latest weekly Norstat poll, support for the Center Party has fallen to an all-time low of 10.1 percent. The party's support among Estonian voters has now dropped twice since Mihhail Kõlvart replaced Jüri Ratas as chair.
Taking only last week's poll of 1,000 respondents November 6-10 as a basis, support for the Center Party has fallen to 10.1 percent. Norstat's standardized weekly results are based on a sample size of 1,000 respondents, with the maximum statistical margin for error not exceeding 3.1 percent.
Admittedly, when presenting its survey results, the Institute for Social Research considers aggregated results from the last four-week period to be more important. In this case, the survey sample size is 4,000, with a maximum error margin no higher than 1.55 percent.
According to those figures, the Center Party's support was at exactly 13 percent, which is slightly higher, though also a low in terms of its historical ratings.
It is with Estonian voters in particular that the Center Party's ratings have taken the biggest hit, with only 6.2 percent among that demographic supporting the party in the most recent poll. Mihhail Kõlvart was elected leader of the Center Party on September 10. In the poll prior to that, support for Center among Estonian voters was at 12.1 percent.
This fall has also not been offset by any increase in support among survey respondents of other nationalities. Center had 54.7 percent support among respondents of other nationalities in this poll, while in the week before Kõlvart was elected leader, it stood at 47.5 percent.
With a higher proportion of Estonian voters among the electorate, the Center Party's ratings have been adversely affected as a whole due to its Estonian supporters preferring other parties. The departure of a number of influential party members has also certainly had an impact.
In this year's Riigikogu elections, the Center Party won 15.3 percent of the vote, earning 16 seats in the Riigikogu. Now however, there are only 13 Center MPs remaining. Tõnis Mölder and Jaanus Karilaid both left Center to join Isamaa, while Maria Jufereva-Skuratovski has gone to the Reform Party.
There were no other major changes in the latest weekly Norstat weekly poll.
Isamaa further consolidated its position as Estonia's most popular political party, with 26.7 percent of the 1,000 respondents backing them, up from 25.6 percent a week earlier.
Support for EKRE was at 24.1 percent, while 17.3 percent favored the Reform Party.
11.6 percent of those surveyed said the support the Social Democratic Party (SDE), placing them above the Center Party (10.1 percent) in the weekly poll.
Support for Eesti 200 was at 6.1 percent. The party, which is set to elect a new leader on Sunday, has seen a decline in support for some time.
Support for Parempoolsed was at 2.3 percent, while 1.1 percent of those polled favored the Estonian Greens.
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Editor: Michael Cole