“Support for the National Coalition is decreasing clearly,” he commented to the public broadcasting company on Thursday. “If you look at movements between parties, there are two main beneficiaries when it comes to the National Coalition. The Centre, which is clearly on the rise in this poll, but also the Social Democrats is benefiting to some extent.”

The Social Democratic solidified its standing as the most popular party in the country with a 0.3-per-cent up-tick in support to 22.6 per cent. Support for the Finns Party came in at 16.7 per cent for the second consecutive month.

The Centre was the biggest winner of the poll with a surge of 2.4 points to 13.2 per cent, a clear improvement on the 11.3-per-cent vote share the right-leaning agrarian party had in the parliamentary elections in April 2023. Turja said the party is both successfully appealing to its traditional supporters and winning over supporters from the National Coalition, Finns Party and Christian Democrats.

“When you have a rise as big as this, it’s usually the sum of many parts. For the Centre, 50–64-year-olds have really stood out as [a key] age group, as has its support among women and support in its traditional strongholds of Eastern and Northern Finland,” he noted.

The Left Alliance saw its approval rating hold at 9.3 per cent, while the Greens dropped 0.6 points to 7.6 per cent.

The Swedish People’s Party and Christian Democrats swapped places near the bottom of the poll, with the former gaining 0.3 points to rise to 3.9 per cent and the latter dropping 0.7 points to fall to 3.4 per cent. Support for Movement Now fell 0.2 points to 1.4 per cent.

The ruling four-party coalition is therefore supported by 44.0 per cent of Finns, a drop of 2.3 points from early September. The five opposition parties, by contrast, have a combined approval rating of 54.1 per cent.

Taloustutkimus received 1,902 responses for the poll between 4 September and 1 October. The results have a margin of error of up to 1.9 points.

Aleksi Teivainen – HT