The polls in Portugal

Vote intention polls since the last election in Portugal. In spite of the scarcity of polls here, there is little room for doubt on what the three largest parties might be in terms of current voter support. Of the 32 media polls conducted since September 2012, PS has led the PSD in every single one of them, with an average voting intention of 34%. PSD's average in those polls is 27%, giving a 7 points lead to the Socialists. But it may be more already. For the polls conducted in the last four months, that lead is slightly higher: 8 points. CDU is comfortably in 3rd place, with an average of 11% since September.

PSD's decline is steeper than PS's rise, since smaller parties - not the government partner CDS-PP, but rather BE and, especially, CDU - seem to be on the rise too. Not quite like Spain, where IU and UPyD are now worth something like 30% of vote intentions. However, these two Portuguese parties, both to the left of the Socialists, are clearly worth a combined 20% of vote intentions. BE's potential in an actual election is always a bit questionable, as it has a more fickle and volatile electorate. But CDU's performance deserves greater atention. Although the Communists typically have good polls in the middle of electoral cycles and always tend to decline as the election approaches and campaigns start mobilizing other sorts of voters, CDU hasn't had such a consistent string of good results in polls since at least 2005. And let's say they get 10% in the next election. This would be their best score since...1987.