Incumbent of the Icelandic presidential office, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, has now taken the lead in the race for the election on June 30, as indicated in a new survey by Fréttablaðið and Stöð 2. Currently, 53.9 percent of respondents intend to vote him.
Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson. Copyright: Icelandic Photo Agency.
Support for Þóra Arnórsdóttir, who was running neck-on-neck with Ólafur Ragnar in Fréttablaðið’s last survey, conducted April 11-12—they enjoyed support by 46.5 percent and 46.0 percent, respectively—and led by eight percent in a more recent survey by the University of Iceland’s Social Science Institute, has now dropped to 35.4, Fréttablaðið reports.
At the time of the last survey, Ólafur Ragnar had not launched his campaign. He did so in a radio interview on Sunday last week and has since then been prominent in the media.
At the same time, Þóra has withdrawn from the spotlight—she gave birth to a baby girl last Friday.
Other candidates rank even lower than before; Ari Trausti Guðmundsson is supported by 5.3 percent of respondents and Andrea J. Ólafsdóttir by 2.7 percent, neither of whom had announced their candidacy before Fréttablaðið’s last survey.
Support for Herdís Þorgeirsdóttir currently ranks 1.3 percent, down from 2.9 percent in the last survey, while Ástþór Magnússon is supported by 0.9 percent, down from 1.5 percent.
No one mentioned Hannes Bjarnason, whose support ranking was 0.4 percent in April. Jón Lárusson has dropped out of the race but was mentioned by 1.2 percent of respondents in the last survey.
In the month that has passed since Fréttablaðið’s last survey, the number of undecided voters has decreased significantly. In April, 22.1 percent of respondents said they were undecided but now the rate is 14.2 percent.
The deadline for announcing one’s candidacy for the presidential election is today, and so the options are becoming clear.
Eight hundred voters were called at random May 23-24 and the response rate was 79.5 percent.
Click here to read more about the presidential election and the candidates.
ESA
