The Nationalist Party holds a 4,858-vote lead over the Labour Party according to the latest survey published by MaltaToday on Sunday.

MaltaToday’s October survey – which uses a different methodology to usual – shows that support for the PN now stands at 45.8% against the PL’s 43.8%. Other parties collectively enjoy the support of 10.5% of the electorate.

The gap between the two major parties stands at 4,858 votes based on what would be a historically low turnout of 69%.

The survey found that Labour’s decline is mostly attributed to a poor retention rate of its 2022 voters, wherein the party only manages to retain 58% of its former voters compared to a 77% retention rate for the PN.

The most striking aspect of the survey is that 31% of all voters will not vote if an election is held now.  Such a figure would be unprecedented in Maltese electoral history.

This being said, Prime Minister Robert Abela remains far more trusted than his Opposition counterpart Bernard Grech.  Abela enjoys a trust rating of 39.2% while Grech only enjoys 20% - however the survey showed that 40.9% of participants trust neither of the two major party leaders.

MaltaToday said that “this is the first polling exercise conducted with a new methodology whereby undecided voters are attributed a voting intention (including non-voting) based on several criteria assessed in the survey.”

The newspaper’s survey was carried out between 25 September and 4 October.

The survey results are very similar to those of a survey conducted by The Malta Independent on Sunday two weeks ago.

This newspaper’s survey – conducted by IDEA Intelligence – showed that the PN held a lead of 0.4 points over the PL, translating to around 1,500 votes, and that Abela remained significantly more trusted than Grech as a leader.

The Malta Independent on Sunday’s survey uses a different methodology to that of MaltaToday: it was carried out online between 1 and 8 September, but demographic variables were utilised in the initial set of questions in order to keep control of the representativeness of the sample in order for it to reflect NSO publications and voter distribution in the 2022 elections.

The Malta Independent on Sunday carried a 1,600 sample, against MaltaToday's 650, but both methods were scientific in their sampling, collection and analysis.

Contrary to MaltaToday’s survey, this newspaper’s survey does not attribute a voting intention to undecided voters. The editorial policy of this newspaper did not assign voting intention as it believes it is too early in the day to assume voting intention