PD surpassed by the right thanks to the encouragement of the liberals

Socialists in February pay the price for an out-of-control pandemic in January. PSD remains unchanged. Bloco regains third place to Chega, who is falling. CDU and PAN recover part of the losses, reveals the Aximage survey for JN, DN and TSF.

Socialist Party goes down (37.6%), Liberal Initiative goes up (5.7%): these are the two main changes in the February Aximage barometer for JN, DN and TSF. One of the consequences of these movements is that the sum of the right-wing parties is once again higher than the electoral projection of the Socialists, despite the stagnation of the PSD (26.5%) and the persistent irrelevance of the CDS (0.8 %). But there is also good news for the left: BE (7.7%) regains the third place it had lost to Chega (6.5%), now down; the CDU also grows (5.8%); and Livre reappears (1.3%). Finally, the PAN halts the fall and rises again (4%).

After three months of rise, up to 40%, the PS registered, in February, a fall of more than two percentage points. The bill for the uncontrolled pandemic in January comes in another way, when the improvement in the figures is already evident, but the price to pay is not high: the socialists are with the same result as in November, when the second wave began to stabilize . , and they remain one point above what was achieved in the 2019 legislature. Therefore, we will have to wait and see if there is a downward trend.

The right has 40 points

Although the PS remains the most likely winner of some elections (if held today), the political framework is undergoing changes. One is that the socialists are now worth less than the sum of the various right-wing parties. And not only because they are falling, but also because the right wing has been growing for several months and is now worth almost 40 percentage points (five more than in October 2019). Although it is a different right from the one that came out of the last legislative elections.

The PSD, for example, parked between January and February (26.5%), unable to withdraw political dividends from the crisis in the results of the PS, and remains one point below what was achieved in the last visit to the polls. And the CDS, its traditional ally, continues what appears to be a path to irrelevance (0.8%). Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos managed to overcome the challenge of Adolfo Mesquita Nunes, but he fails to mobilize voters: since he reached 1% in September last year, he has never exceeded the minimum survival rates.

Liberals highlighted on the right

The new force on the right is clearly in its two new parliamentary parties, although this month’s projections show that the balance of forces remains an ongoing process. The Liberal Initiative is the great sensation of the February barometer: after a slow but steady growth trend, over the past year, Liberals have risen more than two points to 5.7%, outpacing the PAN and closing in from the CDU (it is only one tenth).

Adding the projection of the Liberals with that of Chega, this new Right is already worth more than 12 percentage points (ten more than in the 2019 legislatures). Although the right-wing radicals led by André Ventura have dropped one point from January to February (now they are worth 6.5%), returning to the level of last September and losing a short-lived third place, they remain the party with the highest growth since the last elections (plus five percentage points).

Block again third

The right is stronger, but the left is not necessarily weaker, at least in terms of the sum: it is worth the same 52 percentage points as last month, and one less than in the last legislative ones (if we include Free in these accounts). But the weight of each one is a little different, reducing the socialist dominance, either by the registered fall, or by the growth of its former partners in contraption.

The Bloco de Esquerda (7.7%), after three months of decline, in which it was paying the bill for the divorce with the PS in the State Budget, gains a little encouragement and even regains third place. But it is still two points below the figure recorded in the last elections. The communists also recover the ground lost in January (5.8%), but remain below Chega and threatened by the Liberal Initiative. And, finally, there is the reappearance of Livre (1.3%), thanks to the results in the Lisbon region, a circle for which, remember, he elected his former deputy Joacine Katar Moreira.