Presidential debate in Ecuador favored conservative Lasso, according to poll

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The debate of presidential candidates in Ecuador held on March 21 favored the conservative Guillermo Lasso, who even slightly surpassed former president Correa’s candidate Andrés Arauz in voting intentions, according to a poll released on Tuesday.

Carried out by Comunicaliza for the international consulting firm Atrevia, this survey specifies that the debate, sponsored by the National Electoral Council (CNE) last March 21, was followed by 78% of the population. However, only 32% watched it in its entirety.

Despite the rigidity of the format, the debate had its impact and changed the tendency reflected in previous polls, which had showed Arauz as the probable winner, according to the consultant.

In the poll, 51.3% of those interviewed said they perceived Lasso as the winner, against 48.7% who thought it was Arauz.

The survey also underlines that the latter’s image worsened by 21.9 %, while that of Lasso worsened by 12 %.

The poll leads to the conclusion that “in the last four published surveys the tendency is broken and Guillermo Lasso would be in first place with 1.13 points over Arauz”.

The consultant reviews the polls made before and after the debate, which reflected an average of 10.99 points of advantage for Arauz over his conservative rival, to later drop to 2.21 points.

Read: Ecuadorean Presidential Runoff in April Seems Most Certain

It also points out that as of March 29, Arauz would be accumulating 32.7% and Lasso 33.9%, while 17.1% of voters are undecided, and the blank and void vote stands at 16.2%.

If only those who declared that they would vote next April 11 in the presidential run-off are taken into account, the survey indicates that Lasso would obtain 37.5 % of the electorate, one point above Arauz with 36.5 %, while blank and void votes would add up to 13.7 % and undecided voters 12.2 %.

The average of the estimates derived from the survey shows a 50.9 % valid vote for Lasso, who would win by a narrow margin over Arauz, who would obtain 49.1 %.

From the data, it is clear that Lasso managed after the debate to reach the young public, where he now has the largest number of votes, and that in the main cities of the country, Quito and Guayaquil, he has his main stronghold.

On the other hand, Arauz enjoys solid support in Manabí, the rest of the coastal region, and the Amazon region.

Regarding the votes of the third-placed candidate in the presidential race and therefore ineligible for the run-off election, Yaku Perez, the leader of the indigenous political movement Pachakutik, the poll indicates that nearly 1.8 million of his voters would go 31.9 % to Lasso and 16.5 % to Arauz. In comparison, 31.6 % would be blank and void votes, while 20.1 % remain undecided.

The survey was carried out between March 26 and 28, with a sample of 5,233 respondents over 16 years of age, and has a margin of error of 1.35% plus or minus.