Distance between Castillo and Fujimori in Peru’s presidential runoff falls to 5 points

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The margin between the two Peruvian presidential candidates, Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori, has narrowed to five percentage points, 41% and 36% respectively, according to a poll of voting intentions published less than a month before the second round.

According to Datum’s poll, Fujimori has risen two points since the end of April, the same percentage that Castillo has dropped. However, the percentages of the white vote and undecided voters remain the same, at 11 and 12%.

The director of Datum, Urbi Torrado, explained that it could not be said that there is a tendency to a fall or not because the movement “is within the margin of error”, estimated at 2.8%.

“This change of 4% (of the electorate) that has changed its vote, half of which would have gone to Fujimori, would not be among the undecided,” Torrado added to RPP Noticias.

Among the voters of the extreme left-wing candidate Castillo, 74% have already decided their vote. In contrast, among the voters of Fujimori, whose platform is authoritarian right-wing, 67% are sure of their vote.

Of those saying they would void their vote or leave it blank, 46% are still evaluating their decision, compared to 24% who are determined to keep it when they go to the polls on June 6th.

The voting intention survey published by the newspaper Gestión measured the preferences of the electorate after a first debate held between both candidates in Chota, Castillo’s hometown.

For 44%, the winner of the debate was Fujimori, against 32% who said it was Castillo, while 20% said it was a tie.

Only four percent of voters said they had changed their vote after the debate, especially in Lima (4%) and the north of the country (4%), while 8% said they were thinking about it, mainly in the east (10%) and the north (9%).

However, 88% said that they had not changed their vote after the debate between the candidates.

Torrado added that there is “42% of the electorate totally undecided” and that the campaigns against each of the candidates are so strong that “there is also a hidden vote in favor of both”, which is difficult to measure.

So far, Fujimori is winning among the Lima electorate and Castillo in almost all the regions of the country’s interior, especially in the east and north.

However, due to the electoral weight of this region, Torrado said that “it could be that the northern vote will decide who will be the next president” of the country.

The Datum survey was carried out between May 5 and 6 to a sample of 1,203 people nationwide, with a confidence level of 95% and a margin of error of 2.8%.