During the last election campaign, the “Smart voting” proposed by Alexei Nav alny and his supporters was a highly discussed topic. However, 65% of Russians say they do not know anything about this initiative, 8% of respondents know and support the initiative, 10% do not support it. Another 16% said they had heard of this initiative, but do not know what it is really about.
In general, 35% of the respondents had a positive attitude towards the initiative that aimed to prevent the candidates from the ruling party from entering the parliament. About half of the respondents were negative about it (22% were completely negative, 26% were rather negative).
THE ORGANIZERS OF THE “SMART VOTING” CHOOSE THE MOST POPULAR OPPOSITION CANDIDATE IN EACH CONSTITUENCY AND SUGGEST THAT PEOPLE VOTE FOR THEM. THE GOAL OF THE INITIATIVE TO SURPASS “UNITED RUSSIA” IN THE ELECTIONS. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS INITIATIVE?
The Communist Party voters supported the initiative the most – more than a half of them (54%) were for it and a third (33%) was against it. Among the least supportive groups are the New People voters (33% and 56% respectively) and United Russia voters (13% and 73% respectively).
Half of Russians (51%) aged 18-24 support the initiative, 30% are against it. Respondents aged 55 and older are the least supportive – 28% are for it, while 53% are against it.
Among the supporters of Smart Voting, 20% knew the candidate endorsed by the initiative (the share is only 4% when referred to the total population).
We tried to approximately estimate the chances of a simulated Alexei Navalny’s party getting into parliament. If only the following 6 parties were in the ballot: United Russia, the Communist Party, LDPR, “A Just Russia”, Yabloko and the hypothetical “Alexei Navalny Party”, this party could expect on the support of 5% of Russians and had a chance to get into the State Duma.
Alexey Navalny’s hypothetical party has the highest anti–rating from the same list – 30%, United Russia is second (25%), and Yabloko is third (9%).
MEhodology
This survey was conducted September 23 – 29 2021, among a representative sample of all Russian urban and rural residents. The sample was comprised of 1634 people aged 18 or older in 137 municipalities of 50 regions of the Russian Federation. The survey was conducted as a personal interview in respondents’ homes. The answer distribution is presented as percentages of the total number of participants along with data from previous surveys.
The statistical error of these studies for a sample of 1600 people (with a probability of 0.95) does not exceed:
3.4% for indicators around 50%
2.9% for indicators around 25%/75%
2.0% for indicators around 10%/90%
1.5% for indicators around 5%/95%
The ANO Levada Center has been included in the registry of non-commercial organizations acting as foreign agents.