Peru elections: New poll shows technical tie between Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The presidential candidates in Peru, Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori, are in a technical tie, with 42.6% and 41.7%, according to a poll carried out by Datum, a little more than a week before the second round of elections on June 6.

According to the study, carried out under the modality of mock voting that discounts null and blank votes when calculating results, which has an error margin of 2.8% plus or minus, leftist Castillo lost 2.9 percentage points with respect to a prior mock poll. At the same time, right-wing Fujimori increased by 1.6 points.

In the simulation, carried out between May 25 and 27, Datum asks its sample of 1,201 people to vote on a pollster ballot paper.

The technical tie comes after the debate between the two candidates’ teams of experts, which, according to 54% of those polled by Datum, Fujimori’s team won. In contrast, Castillo’s team obtained 26% of preferences.

It also took place after the attack that last Sunday left 16 people dead, among them four minors, in the Apurimac, Eme, and Mantaro River Valley (VRAEM), an area dominated by drug trafficking and where the remnants of the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), reconverted into custodians of drug trafficking, operate.

When asked about voters’ voting intentions, Datum found that Castillo has 41.6%, some 3.3 percentage points less than the previous week, while Fujimori rises to 41.5%, 1.4 points more. However, 10.9% indicate that they will leave their vote blank or void, while 6% remain undecided.

A 77% of voters have decided on their vote, while 16% think about it, 5% have not thought about it, and 2% do not know.

Regarding the main campaign issues, 46% do not believe that Castillo will implement a type of government like the one in Venezuela, against 40% who do, and 43% affirm that the Movadef, the political arm of the armed band Sendero Luminoso, is among the organizations that support him.

Regarding Fujimori, 65% affirmed that her apologies for her party’s actions in Congress, which led to the closure of the Legislature due to its permanent opposition to the government’s measures, are not sincere; however, the government proposals of her technical team were supported by a majority in the poll.

The mock voting and the survey on voting intentions and campaign incidents were applied to a sample of 1,201 people nationwide, between May 25 and 27, with a margin of error of 2.8% and a confidence level of 95%.