Prediction: Juan Carlos Navarro Win in 7 Sept 08 PRD Primaries
(Panama-Guide.com) Today I opened up the Panama America and found a paid advertisement with detailed political analysis and a poll of more than 3,500 PRD members who intend to vote in the 7 September 2008 PRD primary election. Interestingly enough, I spent some time this morning looking at the August 2008 version of the Dichter & Neira public opinion poll, and I found those results to be a complete waste of time. I mean, the next election that matters is the PRD primary - at this point no one is thinking about Martinelli or Varela. We have to get the PRD primary out of the way first in order to define the actual field of participants for the May 2009 general election. So, while the the Dichter & Neira poll was practically useless, this paid spot only covered the PRD race and was right on the money. (more)
Focused Polling: Elections are little more that popularity contests. Balbina Herrera enjoyed an early lead in the "polls" but those polls were almost always Dichter & Neira polls taken from relatively small samples (1,200 people) taken from across the entire Panamanian population. Balbina Herrera received a remarkable amount of "face time" on Panamanian media when she was the Housing Minister, and as a career politician she has excellent name recognition. In short, practically every Panamanian walking knows who she is and can identify her in a lineup. And, that's nationwide recognition.
Panama City Mayor: Juan Carlos Navarro has been the mayor of Panama City since 1999. Those people not living in Panama City, more than half of the population of the country, have never really had a reason to give a crap about the guy at all. So while he is widely known in and around Panama City, he has still been missing a whole lot of potential voters.
Focused Polling: The poll that was published today in the Panama America resulted from a sampling of 3,500 PRD members only who intend to vote in the 7 September 2008 PRD primary. As a result of this poll, they are predicting a Juan Carlos Navarro win with 47.9% of the vote, for a victory over Balbina Herrera with 42.6% and Laurentino Cortizo with 7.8%. They estimate a 65% participation rate, and of the 670,842 PRD members registered with the party they expect 436,050 to vote.
That's About Right: This poll also took into account things like the performance in the nationally televised debate, Navarro's relatively clean past and record (compared to Balbina Herrera's past and ties to corruption, scandals, and Manuel Noriega.) Also, they consider that Navarro is considered to be a generally stronger candidate for the national election against Martinelli and Varela than Balbina would be. In short, when I read the detailed results of this double spread twin full page ad containing the polling results, I was left with the feeling that they hit the nail right on the head. And, I stick to my original prediction of a PRD primary win for Juan Carlos Navarro and a PRD win in the general election in May 2009 (if the opposition does not unite before then.)
