The National Coalition Party (NCP) has extended its lead at the top of Yle’s latest monthly voter survey, further building on the party’s momentum from topping the poll at June’s municipal elections.
Support for the NCP rose by almost one percentage point to 21.3 percent during the month of August.
Prime Minister Sanna Marin‘s Social Democratic Party (SDP) remains in second place in the poll, but voter support for the governing party slipped slightly to 18.7 percent.
There was also a slight dip in voter backing for the Finns Party but the change of leadership does not appear to have had a major impact on the party’s overall support. Riikka Purra replaced Jussi Halla-aho as party chair during the survey period.
The most noticeable difference for the Finns Party from the previous poll was a drop in support among male voters, according to Research Director Tuomo Turja of polling research firm Taloustutkimus.
“The decline in support for the Finns Party comes almost entirely from men, but support among women has increased slightly,” Turja said, adding that overall support for the Finns Party, in terms of parliamentary elections, has clearly declined throughout the course of this year.
The party topped the poll in Yle’s first monthly survey of the year in January, with 21.9 percent, but support for the party has since dropped by a full four percentage points to leave the Finns in third place with 17.9 percent support.
The NCP, meanwhile, has climbed up from third place, and 16.2 percent voter support, to top the poll for a third consecutive month.
Internal divisions within the NCP between the liberal and conservative wings, which made headlines during the municipal elections campaign, appear to have been resolved to some extent and supporters of both sides are now ready to vote for the party.
“The rise in support for the NCP comes from those who voted for the Finns Party, the Centre Party and the Greens in the previous parliamentary elections. Former Green voters seem to be moving to the NCP more and more recently,” Turja said.
Left Alliance sees biggest loss in support
As the government coalition parties prepare for tough and potentially-tense budget negotiations, support for the Green Party increased while the Left Alliance saw a drop of one percentage point.
Turja told Yle that some previous supporters of the Left Alliance have now moved to the sidelines, and were unwilling to divulge their party allegiances.
The Greens, meanwhile, saw a half-a-percentage-point bump in support from the previous poll and closed the gap further on coalition partners the Centre Party in fourth place.
The party has been in the headlines throughout the survey period, calling for decisions to be made on climate action as well as proposing to increase Finland’s refugee quota as the Afghan crisis unfolded. Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto (Green) has also been a prominent figure in Finland’s operation to evacuate people from Kabul Airport.
Among the other parties, there were no significant changes in support for the Centre Party, the Swedish People’s Party or the Christian Democrats, while Movement Now saw an uptick in voter backing of 0.7 percentage points.
Taloustutkimus interviewed 2,369 people between 4 and 31 August 2021 for the survey. Altogether 1,705 voters revealed their party affiliation. The margin of error was +/- 2 percentage points.
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