Rosa prevails over Ferrer in Popular Democratic Party Resident Commissioner race poll

Senator Angel Rosa would easily defeat former representative and party president Hector Ferrer for the Popular Democratic Party resident commissioner nomination come June 5 if the results of our 2016 Elections March-April poll hold. Rosa would command 46.0% of votes versus Ferrer’s 37.3%, an almost ten point different. Because of the relatively high turnout from PDP affiliated voters in the poll, these results can be construed to have more accuracy than for the New Progressive Party gubernatorial race. With 287 total respondents, the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.8%.

Breaking down each candidate’s support by demographics we obtain the following charts:

Our sample for this question was more balance than for the overall poll, which yielded more balance and accurate results. In this case we can see Rosa is heavily favored by men, whereas Ferrer has a slight edge among women.

Examining age, both candidates’ support groups yielded almost perfect bell curves in the age question, indicating a high degree of accuracy. In terms of support within each age bracket, there are not many significant differences save for the 35-44 years old group, which favors Angel Rosa. Combining millennials into one group yields a slight advantage to Ferrer, but Rosa has a small lead among young voters in the 17-24 age group. Voters above 45 years old seem to favor Rosa, a fact that may carry significant weight in the primary; older voters usually turn out to vote in greater numbers than young ones.

Turning to geographic location, we see Rosa dominating in high population municipalities, namely San Juan, while Ferrer does have a significant lead in Ponce. Other municipalities with large number of PDP affiliates did not register significant levels of participation in the poll, which could potentially skew. That said, San Juan was the clear leader in number of respondents, and can serve as a good indicator of where the race stands.

Unlike the NPP gubernatorial primary, where it seems they might face some divisions come November, populares seem united regardless of who wins the resident commissioner primary. This is likely due to the fact that there is no primary for the gubernatorial nomination, which generally can stoke more divisions in a party. The Popular Democratic Party is not as experienced with primaries for territory-wide races as is the opposing New Progressive Party, nonetheless the poll yielded positive results in terms of unity after the primary.

With about a month left before the June 5 contest, Pasquines will conduct one more poll to check which candidate might prevail. For now, Angel Rosa looks like the likely victor.