Eleições Chile 2021: Investigations in Chile point to an uncertain victory of the leftist Boric against the ultraconservative Kast | International

O Chile faces the final phase of the most polarized election since the return of democracy, with a consensus in the investigations that is more fragile than it seems. I tied December 4, all the institutes davam as winner or candidate of the left, Gabriel Boric. More doubts about the investigations continue. More than about them and their methods, which prove their effectiveness in getting the two candidates to pass for the second round, the uncertainties are about the possibility of capturing the nuances of a context as established as the current one. Isso is reflected in the enormous variety of margins that the investigations conferred on Boric. While some expect a victory more than guaranteed, others see us at a distance within the margin of error, indicating that the election is more open than it might seem considering only the information that it is in first place.

It proves that an important part of these differences is the most difficult question that a research institute can face in a country where the vote is not mandatory: how to correctly identify who will vote and who will not leave home? We tend to imagine the electorate divided into two metades: one vermelha and one blue. A huge distance, not just ideological, but more discursive and aesthetic, of views on morality and ways of life, which exists between Boric and José Antonio Kast, barely reinforces this way of smelling reality. But, like her, we are considerably restricting our field of vision: nessas duas “drawers” ​​only fit the most convicted voters. Here will probably be the majority of two who voted in Kast or Boric in the first round. Also on one side (being analytically generous, a majority) two votes more clearly inclined to one side or to the other two candidates who did not pass to the second stage. More nem sequer incluindo-os chegaramos à metade deleitorado total chilean.

Almost 53% of the population decided not to exercise their right to vote. Among those who vote, there will be a considerable part (especially among the most different candidates in relation to those who will pass for the second round) who will think de novo should be done this December 19. Of the people who will vote at home in November, possibly some are impelled to appear at the polls, not to mention that it is to prevent the candidate that they dislike the most from ending up winning: the polarization is mobilized by rejection more than by adoration. We have, therefore, more than two drawers to put the cities: a green one, a blue one, some with less distinguishable tones and yet another, occupied by a majority, that we don’t know what to paint.

The consequent challenge for the research institutes is not limited to classifying the voters in two categories, but in many. At first, it is more difficult to decide what will end up in the category of “no vote”. The main problem of the North American surveys of 2016 was not that the people had lied to the researchers about their vote for Trump, but rather that they did not ask a sufficient number of people of a certain sociodemographic category (white men without higher education) who normally votes very little and responds less to the inquiries, rather than to the fact that he ended up giving that extra support to the Republican candidate. In the whole world, the taxa of no response to the research has grown in recent years, transforming itself into the main technical problem for those who use this method. It is difficult to foresee how this viés of “no responderu” will be distributed among Chilean voters in an unprecedented context, with different candidates, two habitual ones, and not the middle of a process of structural change like what the country is going through.

The next phase of the challenge to classify two cities in colorful boxes refers to declared indecisiveness. The estimate of votes offered above was based on a calculation that our own research institutes did not vote for. This is not equivalent to the fact that the collection directly gives the sample: it is more common for a certain percentage of people to respond with indecisiveness. A crucial part of opinion research is attributing this indecisiveness to one or another candidate. In most two cases, this distribution is more or less equivalent: there are 20% of undecided, it is assumed that which metade will go to a candidate and another metade, to another. More isso não tem why be necessarily assim. In fact, in some countries it is customary to assume that certain parties or candidates receive a greater share of indecision. In Spain, historically, the conservative candidates (of the Popular Party, or PP) were underestimated with direct vote intention, and it is estimated that two undecided voters attributed a higher proportion to them. But the change in the party system that the country made in the last half decade completely altered these calculations. In the same way, the process of moving to Chile could bring new developments to the front. At this time, it is interesting to verify that the distribution of two undecideds is not the same among the research institutes.

Little can be said about these differences, apart from the fact that they exist – and, like you do, they are more a sign of uncertainty that increases with time. Because there is still another font of Duvidas. Chilean law prohibits the publication of research in the two weeks prior to the election. This period of silence, extraordinary in its duration, but not in its nature (usual in other democracies) opens precisely at the moment in which many voters decide in which drawer it will end: to green, to blue or to two that are at home no day of lawsuit. Looking back, the eleitor investigations serve to narrate the evolution of the eleitors, that Chile does not seem to have followed a trend in favor of Boric.

In any case, or that we do not know that the trend will remain or change during the last days, especially for this important group that still has not decided its action for the 19th. Gabriel Boric and his followers can certainly think that both the trend and The photo of the end of the journey favors you: assim we indicate the dice. More unknowns that still need to be resolved in the next week are big or enough to have nothing guaranteed. Inevitably, its resolution will occur outside of the light that is normally given by the inquiries we trace. Imperfect and intermittent perhaps, more light enfim.