Center overtakes SDE in Norstat poll
The Center Party's support rose to 14.1 percent, surpassing the Social Democratic Party, which garnered 13.5 percent support, according to the weekly survey commissioned by the Institute for Societal Studies and conducted by Norstat.
Support for Isamaa, which holds the leading position, fell by 1.2 percentage points over the week to 29.4 percent of eligible voters.
The Reform Party, in second place, saw no change in its weekly support level but has experienced a 1.7 percentage point drop over the past three weeks. The prime minister's party was backed by 17.9 percent of respondents.
The Center Party rose to third place with 14.1 percent support, up from 12.5 percent the previous week.
Following the top three were the Social Democratic Party (SDE) with 13.5 percent support and the Conservative People's Party (EKRE) with 12.6 percent. Among parliamentary parties, Eesti 200 remains at the lowest support level, at 4 percent.
They were surpassed by the non-parliamentary Parempoolsed, who garnered 4.5 percent support.
The Greens received support from 1.6 percent, the Koos party 1 percent and the Estonian Nationalists and Conservatives 0.9 percent of respondents.
In total, coalition parties were supported by 35.4 percent, while opposition parties garnered support from 56.1 percent of respondents.
If elections were held today, Norstat's results indicate that five parties would enter the Riigikogu. Isamaa would secure 36 seats, the Reform Party 20 seats, the Center Party 16 seats, SDE 15 seats and EKRE 14 seats.
The final consolidated results reflect a survey period from October 14 to November 10, with a total of 4,001 eligible Estonian citizens polled.
The survey's commissioner highlighted the most recent week's results (sample size 1,000), as they differed significantly from the last four weeks' consolidated results (sample size 4,001).
Based on the most recent week's data, Isamaa had 26.9 percent support, the Reform Party 17.6 percent and the Center Party 17.2 percent. They were followed by EKRE with 13.5 percent and SDE with 12.6 percent support.
In presenting its results, Norstat has focused on consolidated data from the past four weeks, resulting in a sample size of at least 4,000 respondents. This approach excludes voters with no party preference when calculating relative support for parties. The maximum margin of error depends on the size of the largest group's proportion. In this survey, the largest group consisted of Isamaa supporters, for whom the margin of error is +/-1.75 percent. For other parties, such as Eesti 200, the margin of error is smaller, at +/-0.75 percent. This method of calculating party support percentages smooths out fluctuations that may arise in individual surveys due to larger statistical error or short-term impactful events.
The surveys were conducted using a combined method, consisting of telephone interviews and online surveys, with the majority of responses coming from telephone interviews.
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Editor: Marcus Turovski