HS poll: Halonen leads by razor-thin margin - Presidential race too close to call

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too Sunday’s runoff in the Presidential elections is set to be a very close race. The latest poll commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat and conducted by Suomen Gallup, gives incumbent Tarja Halonen, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party and Left Alliance, 51 percent support, against 49 percent for National Coalition Party candidate Sauli Niinistö.
      Interviews for the survey were made on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, which makes the information more recent than the poll released on Wednesday by the television network MTV3, in which Halonen got 55 percent support against Niinistö’s 45 percent.
      The latest poll indicates a shift of support to Niinistö from last week's HS-Gallup, which gave Halonen 53 percent and Niinistö 47 percent. However, the changes are small and fit into the poll’s margin of error of three percentage points in either direction.
     
The gap that remains between Halonen and Niinistö also fits within the margin of error. When this is taken into account, Halonen’s numbers could be anywhere between 48 and 54 percent, while Niinistö’s could vary between 46 and 52 percent, which makes the final result of the election extremely difficult to predict.
      The difficulty is increased by the large number of respondents - 24 percent of the 1,300 interviewed - who did not give a preference. Two thirds of those not responding said that they did not want to reveal their choice; only one in three said that they were undecided.
      Those who did not want to reveal their choice are nevertheless considered very likely to go to the polls. Suomen Gallup says that many of them are elderly people, who value both their right to vote, and the secrecy of their choice. Nearly one in four of those in the survey who had already cast absentee ballots would not reveal their choice.
     
The poll tends to confirm trends that emerged in last week’s HS-Gallup:
      Both candidates appear to have held on to their core supporters fairly well. Four out of five voters who backed the Centre Party’s Matti Vanhanen in the first round are now backing Niinistö.
      A clear majority of supporters of the Green League are supporting Halonen. She also has the backing of 55 percent of those who did not vote in the first round.
      Halonen appears to be getting a majority among young voters and among the oldest, while Niinistö is ahead among those of working age.
      The two finalists are running neck-and-neck in Helsinki and the Uusimaa region. Niinistö is the favourite in East Finland, Halonen is more popular in the west. Halonen is the favourite of urban Finns, while Niinistö has a majority in rural areas.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Presidential election poll shows increased uncertainty among voters (26.1.2006)

Helsingin Sanomat