Many Voters Uncommitted in General Election
The latest MRP estimates using the SLOTS polling data confirms a general decline in support for the NPP/JVP and SJB since early 2023, with modest increases in support for the UNP and SLPP, which both remain behind. They also confirm a large increase in voters who say they will vote for another party but are unwilling or unable to say which.
Dr. Ravi Rannan-Eliya, IHP Executive Director, commented: “These latest results again confirm that a large share of the electorate is increasingly uncertain who to support. This would suggest that none of the major parties have succeeded in making a convincing case to the public, and it implies that there is potential for big changes in support in coming months.”
Methodology
SLOTS combines interviews from a national sample of adults (ages 18 and over) reached by random digit dialling of mobile numbers, and others coming from a national panel of respondents who were previously recruited through random selection. IHP estimates voting intent using an adaptation of Multilevel Regression and Post-Stratification (MRP), with multiple imputation to account for uncertainties in its modelling, exploiting data from all SLOTS interviews to estimate voting in a particular month.
The July 2023 MRP estimates are based on 466 interviews conducted in July 2023, and 12,269 interviews conducted overall from 1 October 2021–13 August 2023, with a margin of error assessed as 3–5% for the NPP/JVP, SJB, UNP and SLFP, and 1–3% for the other parties. As the May update uses a more recent data set than the previous update, there are small changes in estimates of voting shares for previous months. A total of 62 stochastic simulations were used in the modelling to estimate margins of error.
IHP is an independent, non-partisan research centre based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The SLOTS lead investigator is Dr Ravi Rannan-Eliya of IHP, who has trained in public opinion polling at Harvard University and has conducted numerous surveys over three decades.