NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Prime Minister Philip Davis received a 67 percent approval rating, according to a recent survey on the Progressive Liberal Party’s first 100 days in office.
The survey, which was conducted by Bahamian research and polling firm Intel Cay, polled 1,064 participants online and is still ongoing.
It was conducted between December 20th, 2021, and January 24, 2022.
The survey also gave an opt-in option for respondents to indicate which political party they support, of which 33 percent supported the Progressive Liberal Party, 19 percent supported the Free National Movement, and 42 percent said they were independent voters.
An additional six percent of people surveyed said they supported other parties, which included the Democratic National Alliance, the Coalition of Independence, and other fringe parties.
Of the respondents surveyed, sixty-seven percent said they approved of the way that Davis is handling his job as prime minister.
Davis received a 72 percent approval rating among men and a 64 percent rating among women.
Additionally, he received a high approval rating (93 percent) from people who identified as PLP supporters than respondents who identified as FNM (57 percent rating).
Meanwhile, Davis received a lower approval rating with respondents on Grand Bahama (58 percent) than he did with those on New Providence (68 percent) or on the Family Islands (71 percent).
Respondents were also asked to rate the prime minister’s Cabinet appointments on a scale of one to five, with five being “very good”.
Of those surveyed, the appointments received a 3.5 overall rating out of five, which culminated in 51 percent of people who thought the appointments were “good” or “very good”.
However, when asked to rate the current government’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Davis administration was given a 2.9 out of 5 rating — with just 38 percent of respondents indicating that the government’s COVID-19 mitigation has been “good” or “very good”.
The margin of the PLP’s general election victory and the split of the votes in several key seats were reminiscent of the Free National Movement’s (FNM) sweep in 2017.
The PLP dealt crushing blows at the September 16, 2021 polls as the electorate largely traded out FNMs for PLPs.
Nearly 23,000 votes separated the FNM and PLP.
The PLP got 53 percent of the vote, with the FNM getting 35 percent.
The COI captured over six percent and the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) received 1,347 votes, just over one percent.
The remaining independent candidates collectively secured just over 2,553 votes, which accounts for around two percent of the votes.
In May 2017, nearly 32,000 votes separated the FNM and PLP.
The FNM secured 91,137 votes to the PLP’s 59,164 — a difference of 31,973 votes, winning in 35 of the 39 constituencies.
At the time, 159,910 of the 184,000 registered voters cast their ballot, representing an 87 percent voter turnout, in comparison to the 65 percent voter turnout (over 126,000 voted of the 194,000-plus registered voters in September.
