Six out of 10 people from Bari will vote: will send to the ballot, in order of preferences, Vito Leccese (Pd, Verdi, civice) and Fabio Romito (centre-right), mayoral candidate who is the best known of all. The third will be Michele Laforgia (M5S, SI, Psi) ten points away from Leccese in the first round. But Laforgia would beat him, albeit by a whisker, in a possible run-off within the centre-left. The podium of preferences for individual parties is distributed between the three coalitions: the PD is the first party, second the M5S Stelle, third FdI. They are the only political forces with a double-digit result.
It is the summary photograph of the survey prepared by Ipsos for the Corriere della Sera: 800 interviews (with various survey methods) on 4,330 telephone calls in the days between 15 and 19 May, in different neighborhoods of the city. The former head of cabinet and former deputy Vito Leccese, supported by 7 lists, would receive 37.6% of the consensus of Bari voters in the first electoral round of 8 and 9 June. The second most supported would be the regional councilor Fabio Romito (with 10 lists), 5 percentage points away (32.7%). The lawyer Michele Laforgia follows (6 lists) with 26.1% of the preferences. Fourth in the ranking would be the former city councilor Nicola Sciacovelli with 2.5% of the vote. The fifth and last place in the preference ranking would go to the former grillino Sabino Mangano (1.1%).
Ipsos estimates a voter turnout of 59.5% of eligible voters. While 40.5% of voters are undecided, they may not go to vote or put a blank or blank ballot in the ballot box. It is a wide margin of people from Bari that suggests the candidates persist in the electoral campaign in order to gain their trust.
The survey excludes the possibility of an electoral solution in the first round, as was the case 5 years ago in favor of Mayor Decaro: all the candidates are far from the indispensable 50% plus one of the votes. The ballot, therefore, is taken for granted.
If Leccese and Romito faced each other in the second round, the former would prevail: 58.9 against 41.1%. The PD candidate would easily impose himself because he would obtain the support of those who are willing to vote for Laforgia (85.8% of these). Romito would attract 82.2% of the voters of Sciacovelli and Mangano, but these have a lower absolute electoral figure and therefore weigh less in the result. If the two center-left exponents ended up in the runoff, Laforgia (with 50.4% of the preferences) would beat Leccese by a whisker. This is because the lawyer would be able to attract the support of 2 out of 3 voters among those who, for the first round, expressed favor towards the other candidates.
The survey reports that the work of Mayor Decaro, known by 92% of those interviewed, is appreciated across the board. The sample gives him an average rating of 7.8 (on the scale from 1 to 10): the opinion is quite uniform, even among the undecided people who don’t know whether to go and vote. Only Romito’s supporters give him a 6.7 rating. If Decaro is known by almost everyone, Romito is the most popular immediately after: 61% of those interviewed have heard of him: the result of his long experience as a municipal councilor, despite his 36 years.
The analysis of the responses on possible list votes is also interesting. First place goes to the Democratic Party (Leccese coalition): it achieved an approval rating of 15.6% (16.9% in 2019). Just below, with 15.5%, the M5S (Laforgia): a party that usually does not shine in the administrative elections (in 2019 it took 8.8% of the votes), but in Bari it managed to show off itself in the relaxing phase and unsuccessful in the choice of the single centre-left candidate. Third is FdI (Romito), which promises to quintuple the votes: from 3.2% in 2019 to the estimated 14%.
Last note: Leccese would get fewer votes than the sum of its parties, Romito and Laforgia a little more than their respective lists.
