Do., Okt. 12th 2023
The winners of 2019 will lose and the losers will win: This is what the latest election barometer predicts before the national elections on October 22nd.
The Greens could fall below the 10% threshold, while the SVP could increase its share of the vote to over 28%.
The Greens’ losses could therefore be greater than previously predicted. For the first time in the current legislative period, the party’s election barometer shows a voter share of less than 10%.
The Greens lose 3.5 percentage points and still get 9.7%. This would mean they would lose more than half of their 2019 profits, according to Sotomo’s latest election barometer from Wednesday, created on behalf of the SRG. In 2015, the Greens had a voter share of 7.1%.
Green elected officials in French-speaking Switzerland in particular are likely to be vying for seats: the Greens made far more gains there in 2019 than in German-speaking Switzerland. The barometer predicts that the party will lose five percentage points in French-speaking Switzerland, while in German-speaking Switzerland it will probably only be three percentage points.
The SVP, on the other hand, is likely to make strong gains: it is predicted to have a voter share of 28.1% – 2.5 percentage points more than in 2019. However, the 28.1% would still be less than the SVP’s voter share in 2007 and 2015. According to the surveys, the People’s Party has been on the rise since autumn 2021.
The SP is also predicted to win. It could increase from 16.8 to 18.3% – particularly at the expense of the Greens. But that is still less than the Social Democrats have had since 1991.
According to the election barometer, the Greens and the SP behaved like communicating tubes. The trend back to the SP is explained by the fact that social issues have become more urgent in the eyes of voters since 2019, while environmental issues have lost ground. The left-wing camp is predicted to lose two percentage points of voters.
As in the survey published at the beginning of September, the Center and the FDP are in a neck-and-neck race for third place in favor of voters. The Center recently got 14.3%, and the FDP 14.1% of the vote. According to the election barometer, the FDP is losing again after 2019, while the Center – previously the CVP and BDP – is gaining.
With 6.8% of the vote, the GLP could even fall one percentage point behind its 2019 result, but still have a higher share of the vote than in 2015. They had initially increased to up to 9.8% in the surveys in the current legislature, before the decline began a year ago.
According to the survey, there is likely to be a shift to the right on October 22nd, but not as strong as in 2015. Eight years ago, the FDP and SVP together had 45.8% of the vote. According to the barometer, in ten days it could be 42.2%. In 2019, the two parties together achieved 40.7%.
The biggest challenge for those answering (the survey) at the moment is health insurance premiums. The topics of climate change and immigration follow well behind – these have become more important compared to 2019, while climate change was less important for the respondents, despite the hot summer and warm autumn of 2023. The importance of the economy has decreased.
The election barometer assumes a lower voter turnout than in 2019. The reason given is that the significance of the upcoming elections for the future of Switzerland is considered to be less important than that of the 2019 elections. Mobilization is likely to be more difficult, especially among leftists, than it was four years ago.
From September 22nd to October 5th, 31,850 voters took part in the survey for the election barometer online. The sampling error is plus/minus 1.2 percentage points. During the survey, the health insurance premiums for 2024 were announced. They are rising by an average of 8.7%, the steepest they have in years.
©Keystone/SDA
German 
English 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic