One Month before Venezuela’s Presidential Election Polls Show Huge Leads for Chávez

[Prometheus Bound]

One Month before Venezuela’s Presidential Election Polls Show Huge Leads for Chávez
By Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, September 18th 2012

With just one month left before Venezuelans go to the ballot box, a survey of recent opinion polls shows significant leads for Hugo Chávez in the race to be Venezuela’s next president.

The average of all 13 polls carried out in August and in the first week of September, saw Hugo Chávez on 51% and Henrique Capriles on 35% giving Chávez an average lead of 16% (See table 1).

Such a lead would translate into an advantage of more than two million votes for Hugo Chávez on October 7th.

Of these 13 polls surveyed, 11 gave a lead for Hugo Chávez and just two put the main challenger, Henry Capriles Radonski, ahead. (See chart 1 to the right).

In the 11 polls putting Hugo Chávez ahead, all but one gives him a lead of between 13-28%. In contrast, the two polls that put Henry Capriles Radonski ahead gave him leads of just 2% and 4%.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/7264

Wall Street Journal

Investors Turn Gaze to Venezuela Election
September 18, 2012, 6:57 p.m. ET

...Most polls still show Mr. Chávez with a double-digit-percentage lead. But many also show Mr. Capriles gaining some ground.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443720204578004591805170404.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[hrmjustin]

1. 14 years is a long time in office. Do you think he will be re-elected? What is the opposition like?

[joshcryer]

2. These polls are going to be used to de-legitimatize Capriles' win, imo.

Nevermind that most of them are outdated and even then were showing a downward trend for Chavez. Good to see that Venezuela Analysis actually posed that graph, though.

[Prometheus Bound]

3. Outdated? I don't think so.

Do you know of any that were published after the first week of September when these ones were?

[joshcryer]

4. Fair enough. It's just that these polls are two weeks old and a lot has happened.

Half of those polls were before the refinery explosion.

And Hugo isn't even able to bring out crowds like he was before:

This exchange happened when Chavez canceled a talk in Catia.

Izarra: What happened?

Madruo: Here it is, this is ... so no, it was not so ... this is what we have ... so it was not to be...

With journalists here and the president here ... this is what we have ... so it was not to be...

What is he talking about?

The turnout was abyssal. Chavez didn't think it was worth it to speak.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Thank you, Prometheus Bound. Completely interesting, helpful. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

6. This is pure hell, by all means, for datanalysis. They dispise Chavez. n/t