THE STATS SHOW THE FNM IN THE TANK

M’Wale Rahming: Public Domain Pollster
New Poll Numbers One-Year After FNM Takes Office
April 2018 polling shows that since the May 2017 election, public satisfaction in the Free National Movement administration has been on a steady decline.

April 11th, 2018—Nassau, Bahamas—Public Domain, the premier market and opinion research firm in The Bahamas, has released its April 2018 poll data on 1) satisfaction with the government’s performance and 2) whether the country is going in the right direction or wrong direction. Results of the phone poll show a steady decline, since May 2017, in public opinion on both satisfaction and right direction/wrong direction of the country. The data was collected by phone polling from March 15th to April 7th, 2018 and relies on a random, weighted sampling of 1,000 Bahamians.

“Public Domain releases this kind of information because we often hear people make assumptions about what Bahamians believe and how Bahamians feel. Beyond the research and strategy work we do for our clients, we want to build a culture where opinions are formed, and decisions are made based on evidence, not assumptions,” said Senior Communications and Policy Strategist, Joey Gaskins Jr.

There are a few key takeaways from the results of this new poll:

• Respondents’ generally satisfaction with the Minnis administration stands currently at 44% compared to
• The number of respondents who were generally “satisfied” with Minnis and the FNM administration in April has decreased by 9% since November 2017, for a total of an 18% decline since the May 2017 elections.
• The number of respondents generally “not satisfied” with FNM administration has increased from 5% after the May 2017 elections to 33% in April 2018. That represents a 28% increase over the last year.
• Since the election, the number of respondents who believe the country is generally going in the “right direction” has declined from 67% to 40%, while the number of respondents who believe the country is generally going in the “wrong direction” increased from 21% to 39%.
• Specifically, the number of respondents who believe the country is going “very much in the right direction” has dropped from 25% in September 2017 to 12% in April 2018, almost single digits.

“What we are observing is slippage in support since the elections. I don’t, however, believe the slippage is permanent and there is still time to recover,” said Gaskins. “But, one thing our polling over the last seven years has taught us is that once the Bahamian people form negative attitudes toward an administration they stop listening, and once they stop listening, it is very difficult to regain their support.”

Public Domain is the premier market and opinion research firm in The Bahamas. Public Domain is a Bahamian owned company that has been in existence for seven years and combined; its partners have

Decades of experience in qualitative and quantitative research. This research is supported by an 18-seat Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) call center.

Public Domain has also expanded its service-mix to include communications strategy, policy strategy, and government affairs, as well as corporate training and facilitation.

Contact: Joey Gaskins Jr, Senior Communications and Policy Strategist, (242) 828-8973, joey@ourpublicdomain.com