Responding to poll results published in The Nassau Guardian that showed the two major political parties are in a statistical dead heat, Deputy Leader of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Philip Brave Davis said yesterday the PLP will continue to surge as the campaign heats up. "It is encouraging for us as PLPs and to note from all accounts that the trend is in favor of the PLP," Davis said in an interview via telephone.
The poll was conducted for The Nassau Guardian by market research and public polling company Public Domain. Public Domain President M'wale Rahming said recently, "What we've seen over the last month or so has been the FNM holding strong and PLP rise as the DNA's vote goes down." Davis said yesterday that it is important for the PLP to stay on message as the campaign trail heats up ahead of the 2012 general election. "The message is to ensure that the plans that we have, and the initiatives we intend to put in place to arrest the issues that affect our nation are disseminated to the electorate," he said. "We think we are doing a good job at it now and I am satisfied that the vehicle that we are going to be using to carry those messages to the people will be effective."
Davis said the PLP has been conducting its own polls and he has been pleased with the results. The results of the Public Domain poll were revealed in Thursday's edition of The Nassau Guardian. Asked who they would vote for if an election was held today, 30.5 percent said they would vote for the FNM; 23.7 percent said PLP; 16.5 percent said Democratic National Alliance (DNA); 1.6 percent said they would vote for other parties or candidates and 12.2 percent said they were undecided. Another 3.7 percent were classified as FNM leaners; another 6.6 percent as PLP leaners and another 5.2 percent as DNA leaners. The FNM therefore got 34.2 percent of the total support; the PLP got 30.3 percent of total support and the DNA got 21.7 percent of total support.
Public Domain contacted 501 respondents in a telephone survey between March 5 and March 12, 2012. Such a sample size has a maximal margin of error of 4.4 percent, researchers said. At an FNM rally on Thursday night, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham dismissed the conclusion that the two main parties are in a statistical dead heat. He claimed that while The Guardian headline said the FNM and PLP are in a statistical dead heat, the story says something else. "They could slice and dice all they want, the numbers show Colour Red is ahead," he said.
"The newspapers [have] their numbers. We [have] our numbers, and we [have] the PLP number. All the numbers say the same thing: Red, red, red." Ingraham declared, "We are ahead in votes, ahead in enthusiasm and ahead in support, support coming from FNMs and support from many who have never supported us in the past." In a statement released on Thursday, the DNA said the poll results show it is now within "striking range" of the two political forces in the country after only 10 months of existence.
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