General Perez Leads Another August Poll

Prensa Libre and Prodatos published August poll results today. These are their first poll results since former first lady Sandra Torres was definitively barred from competing in next month's election. What do today's poll numbers tell us?

Otto Perez Molina still maintains a sizable lead over his main competitors. Forty percent of those polled responded that they intended to vote for the General on September 11th. Perez's support increased by two percentage points from Prensa Libre's July poll. On the one hand, it's surprising that he did not pick up more votes following the dismissal of Torres. I speculated that strategic voters might switch to Perez even if he wasn't their preferred candidate once Torres was knocked out of the race. It's still possible that on election day that will happen however.

According to today's poll, UNE-GANA supporters have switched their loyalties to Manuel Baldizon of LIDER. Baldizon increased his support from 8.4% in July to 18.5% in August. Support for Eduardo Suger (CASA) increased as well from 9% to 11%.

Boz has a list of how all the candidates fared in the poll. Each candidate saw his or her support increase following the end to Torres' run for the presidency. I am a little surprised that Menchu didn't get a bigger bump considering many of those on the left side of the political spectrum supported Torres and she is the only left or even center-left candidate in the race. Some also expected Adela de Torrebiarte to get a bigger increase in support given how hard she worked to get Torres off the ballot. However, she only came in with less the one percent of the vote as usual.

As of right now, it still doesn't appear that Perez will be able to win a first round victory and will instead need to compete in a runoff. Last week's El Periodico / Borge y Asociados poll had Perez firmly in the lead as well but had Suger slightly ahead of Baldizon in the battle for second place. It's still unclear whether Baldizon or Suger will emerge as Perez' main competitor and, for now, I'd still say it's a toss-up between the two.