With less than three weeks left for Colombians to return to the polls on June 21, a new AtlasIntel poll on the runoff projects a 7.7 percentage point lead for far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella over officialist senator Iván Cepeda.
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In the preliminary count of last Sunday’s first round, De la Espriella won with 43.74% of the votes, while Cepeda came second with 40.90%.
According to the new measurement, commissioned by Semana magazine and conducted between June 1 and 2, just days after the official result of the first electoral round was announced, De la Espriella registered 50.3% voting intention compared to 42.6% for Cepeda.
The study also reported that blank votes would receive 3.7% of responses. Meanwhile, 0.5% said they would nullify their vote or not participate in the election day, while 2.9% responded that they still do not know which option they will lean towards.
In addition to voting intention, AtlasIntel asked respondents about the level of rejection generated by both candidates. To the question: “Between Iván Cepeda and Abelardo de la Espriella, which of them do you reject more as a possible president of Colombia?”, the results showed that Cepeda registers a rejection of 56.6%, while De la Espriella obtains 40.3%.
The AtlasIntel survey also makes an exercise on the behavior that voters of Paloma Valencia, Sergio Fajardo, and other candidates would have on June 21. 76.4% of Valencia’s voters would support De la Espriella, 4.4% would back Cepeda, and 12.9% would vote blank.
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In Fajardo’s case, 18.9% of his voters would support De la Espriella, while 24.2% would go with Cepeda. On that spectrum, there is a revealing figure: 43.6% would vote blank.
Among those who supported other candidates, 53.2% would be ready to vote for De la Espriella and 32.8% for Cepeda.
The poll was released after the Brazilian firm accurately projected the first presidential round held on May 31, in which De la Espriella ended up in first place in the national vote. “Throughout the entire electoral cycle, from the consultations to the first round, AtlasIntel’s data identified the rise of Abelardo de la Espriella as the main opposition figure,” the pollster said in a statement.
“On May 23, both appeared practically tied. The next day, De la Espriella took first place and maintained the lead until election day,” AtlasIntel reported in the statement.
The firm added that, in its last measurement before the first round, conducted between May 27 and 29, Abelardo de la Espriella registered a voting intention of 42.3%, while Iván Cepeda reached 37.6%.
