56 percent of Budapest voters who have promised definite participation would chose István Tarlós on 13th October. The popularity of Gergely Karácsony shows further decline, so he would only take 38 percent of the votes if the election was due this Sunday, the representative public opinion poll of 1000 Budapest citizens conducted by Nézőpont Institute for Magyar Nemzet reveals.
István Tarlós has managed to increase his lead over Gergely Karácsony. On the one hand, the number of the supporters of the current mayor of Budapest has grown by 3 percent, on the other hand, the number of voters who would chose Karácsony has decreased by 2 percent (from 40 to 38 percent). The background to this is that the proportion of anti-government voters who would vote for Gergely Karácsony is decreasing, it is now 63 percent, down from 68 percent in early September.
This is probably due to the recording that leaked last week and which is dubbed the ”Őszöd speech” of Gergely Karácsony. This puts the opposition politicians, who have been accusing the government with corruption, in an especially awkward situation, as corruption casts a shadow over their own endorsed, Gergely Karácsony. Indeed, the relative majority of Budapest citizens (46 percent) think that the socialist politicians of Zugló could have been involved in the suspected corruption cases linked to district led by Gergely Karácsony. The number of people who believe that Gergely Karácsony is liable for these issues is also higher (33 percent) than the number of those who think the opposite (25 percent). Even among opposition voters the proportion of those who say that the socialist politicians of Zugló and Gergely Karácsony is involved in the corruption cases in Zugló is similar, 47 and 34 percent respectively. The scandal, which broke out on Thursday, and its effect on public opinion as described above, may risk the chances of an alliance between the opposition parties.
Thus it is not a surprise that the proportion of those who believe that István Tarlós will win the election has grown: now two thirds of all Budapest voters (67 percent) agree with this.
Methodology
The public opinion poll of the Nézőpont Institute was conducted between September 19 and September 28, 2019 in Budapest, including 1000 telephone interviews. It is a representative sample of the capital population over the age of 18, based on gender, age and education, with a maximum sampling error of 3.2 percent.