By Fabian Cambero
SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Leftist candidate Gabriel Boric was leading conservative Jose Antonio Kast in the latest poll released on Sunday ahead of the second round of Chile’s presidential election on Dec. 19.
The poll, carried out Nov. 23-26, showed likely voters favored Boric, representing a coalition including the leftist Frente Amplio and the local Communist Party, with 53.9% support against Kast’s 31.2%.
The online survey Citizen Pulse of the firm Activa Research polled 1,518 voters, with a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.
Kast – often likened to Brazil’s blunt-talking President Jair Bolsonaro – has found a receptive audience for his “law and order” message. He finished at the top of the first round of voting on Nov. 21 but did not secure the majority needed to win outright.
Boric, who rose to prominence as a student protest leader, got about 26% in the first round, a close second to Kast who had about 28%. Boric must expand his support beyond his core of young, urban voters if he is to clinch a win in the second round.
The two have wildly different visions for the future of the world’s top copper-producing nation.
The survey showed that an additional 9.8% said they did not know who to vote for and 4.9% stated that they would turn in ballots that did not support any candidate.
“People who voted for candidates other than Kast and Boric are still considering their options,” Victoria Leon, spokeswoman for the polling firm, told CNN.
The general preference between the candidates leaned heavily toward Boric with a 40.4% favorable rating versus Kast’s 24.5%, the survey showed.
One of the great unknowns of the election is how much support liberal candidate Franco Parisi could pull after coming in third in the first round of voting.
(Reporting by Fabian Cambero, writing by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by David Gregorio)
