HS poll: Four largest parties most popular among young voters
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The Centre Party, the National Coalition Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the Green League are clearly the most popular political groups among young voters in Finland.
According to a poll commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat and conducted by Suomen Gallup, the top four get more than 80% of the support of the 18-29 age group.
Although the top four seem to be quite even, the Centre Party and the National Coalition Party are ahead of the other two with 21.4% and 21.2% support respectively.
The Social Democratic Party gets 19.9% support among young voters, and the Greens get 19.3%.
Other parties fall far behind the four big ones. According to the poll, the closest runner-up, the Left Alliance, gets less than six percent of the youth vote.
The fresh results show little change from a similar poll from early 2004.
Slight changes can be discerned when the results are compared with those of the Parliamentary elections of 2003.
Support for the Centre Party appears to have declined slightly, while the popularity of the SDP has risen, although it is smaller than in 2004.
After a slight dip, youth support for the National Coalition Party seems to be at about the same level as in the Parliamentary elections.
The Greens also appear largely unchanged.
The most recent HS Gallup involving all age groups was published in July. A comparison of the results of the latest poll with that survey indicates differences in support for the SDP and the Greens.
In the July poll, 26% of all respondents of voting age said that they would vote for the SDP in Parliamentary elections, and 8.7% came out in favour of the Greens.
Support for the Centre Party shows little change according to age group, with the Centre getting 23% support among voters of all ages. Support for the National Coalition Party among young adults also differs little from that among the whole voting-age population.
The poll involved telephone interviews with 3,345 people between February and June. The sampling represents Finns aged 18 - 29, and does not include the semi-autonomous Åland Islands.
The margin of error with the larger parties is 1.4 percentage points.
Helsingin Sanomat
