turnout in the Russian presidential elections will exceed 70%, and Putin will gain more than 80% of the votes

On Monday, sociologists from the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) and the Institute of Social Marketing (INSOMAR) presented their “electoral calculations” of the results of the March 15-17 presidential elections. According to their estimates, turnout will exceed 70%, and Vladimir Putin will receive more than 80% of the votes. The gaps between the other candidates are so small that any of them can become second, although for now in all calculations this position is occupied by Nikolai Kharitonov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation). Experts explained the current balance of power for various reasons, including “consolidation around the flag” and the lack of energy among candidates other than Vladimir Putin.

Presenting their reports at the round table of the Expert Institute for Social Research (EISR) on March 11, all sociologists emphasized that we are talking about “electoral calculations.” As VTsIOM General Director Valery Fedorov explained, this term denotes a forecast model with a minimal expert element, that is, for the most part, the calculation is based precisely on work with survey data, during which decreasing or decreasing values ​​could be applied to certain values ​​obtained during field research. increasing coefficients. “For example, awareness of the election date. If a person doesn’t know her, but says he will go, then the coefficient is reducing,” the sociologist gave an example. If the respondent says that he will not go to the polls, but has a high interest in the elections, then an increasing coefficient is used.

As a result, according to calculations VTsIOM, based on the results of an initiative all-Russian telephone survey of 1.6 thousand people on March 6 (statistical error does not exceed 2.5%), the turnout in the elections will be 71%. “We could have gone the safe route and given the range. But then we decided to place a bet in this game of chance,” admitted Mr. Fedorov. The results of the candidates, according to VTsIOM, will be as follows: Vladimir Putin (self-nominated) – 82% of the votes, Nikolai Kharitonov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) – 6%, Vladislav Davankov (New People) – 6% (but still slightly less than a communist), Leonid Slutsky (LDPR) – 5%, and another 1% of voters will spoil their ballots. However, Valery Fedorov added, the difference between the three party candidates is actually within the statistical error, so it was possible to simply give them all one possible range. “But this is not interesting,” said the sociologist.

Data FOM (based on the results of an initiative all-Russian door-to-door survey of 1.5 thousand respondents, conducted on March 4–6 in 53 constituent entities of the Russian Federation, the statistical error does not exceed 3.6%) was presented by Larisa Pautova, and they turned out to be similar. Thus, the estimated turnout was 69.8%, and Vladimir Putin can get 80.8%.

Like VTsIOM, the gaps between the other candidates do not go beyond the statistical error: Nikolai Kharitonov will take second place with a result of 5.7%, followed by Leonid Slutsky (5.6%) and Vladislav Davankov (4.6%), who will spoil the ballots 3 .3% of voters.

Ms. Pautova separately noted that there was no point in the forecast precisely because of the small difference in the indicators of the “second-tier” candidates.

Finally, INSOMAR and his representative Viktor Poturemsky presented a calculation based on an initiative telephone survey of 3 thousand respondents from a nationwide sample conducted on March 6–7 (the maximum possible error is no more than 1.78%). According to these data, the turnout will be 71.7%, Vladimir Putin will receive 80.2% of the votes, Nikolai Kharitonov – 6.3%, Leonid Slutsky – 5.6%, Vladislav Davankov – 5.1%, spoiled ballots – 2.8 %.

The round table participants repeatedly emphasized that, despite the ranking of candidates from opposition parliamentary parties proposed by sociologists, the minimal gap between them suggests that any of them can take second place. Political scientists present at the discussion tried to explain why this happened.

“We see complete consensus among sociologists. The result of candidate Vladimir Putin obviously crosses the 80% mark. The high level of turnout indicates a clear demonstration of the consolidation of society,” said EISI representative Firdus Aliyev.

“The 80% that, according to sociologists, Vladimir Putin is gaining in the elections, correlates with a large number of current campaign factors. Its dominance in the semantic agenda is absolute. This can also be associated with “consolidation around the flag”, a very high level of support, which allows us to talk about the maximum naturalness of sociological data,” explained the head of the scientific council of the Center for Political Conjuncture, Alexey Chesnakov. He also noted that other candidates spoke about the past and present, and Mr. Putin (in his message) – about the future, and with a specific time frame. In addition, all party candidates, according to the expert, failed to “disconnect” from their parties and show their individuality and humanity.

“An important factor is the energy factor. My colleagues and I attended the president’s address and exchanged opinions among ourselves, with deputies of both houses of parliament, and governors. The general opinion: you’ve seen the energy gushing out of the president!” — political consultant Evgeniy Minchenko put forward a new version. In his opinion, Nikolai Kharitonov said what he was taught at the “higher party school,” and against this background candidates Slutsky and Davankov needed to be “a little more free,” but they lacked courage. Mr. Minchenko admitted that Vladimir Putin actually took over part of the traditional electorate of other parties, and from this, according to the expert, Nikolai Kharitonov suffered the most.

Kommersant separately asked Alexey Chesnakov and Evgeny Minchenko whether any of the candidates could receive an increase at the expense of those people who had not made their choice before voting. At the round table, Valery Fedorov estimated the share of such voters as not exceeding 10%.

“If we extrapolate previous sociological data, then the exit polls for 2021 (for the State Duma elections.— “Kommersant”) showed that many state employees who came on the first day voted for “New People,” answered Mr. Minchenko. “That is, the logic was this: “Let’s try something new without a high anti-rating.” Therefore, I think that Davankov, as the candidate with the least recognition and atypical style, has the greatest chance of gathering these undecided people who make decisions on the last day.” But Mr. Chesnakov believes that such a candidate cannot be singled out: “It is impossible to predict flows at such minimum wages.”

At the end of the discussion, Valery Fedorov gave his unexpected interpretation of the above electoral calculations: “The key to understanding this campaign is its referendum nature. This is exactly how it was designed. Given that we have been conducting a special military operation for two years and it is unknown how long it will last, there could be no other campaign. Some other countries cancel elections altogether in such situations,” the head of VTsIOM concluded.

Andrey Vinokurov