The survey released by Ipsos Synovate on Friday, says voter turn out in Uhuru’s strongholds was 88 per cent compared to his main challenger CORD presidential candidate Raila Odinga’s strongholds at 84 per cent.
“This was the tyranny of voter turnout and that four per cent makes that difference,” said Tom Wolf, a research analyst with Ipsos Synovate.
He said Uhuru had 5.25 per cent victory, more than they projected, as Raila got a little less than they had predicted and attributed it to the “differential voter turnout”.
Additionally, Uhuru garnered more votes in Raila’s strongholds compared to what Raila scored in Uhuru’s, in what the pollster attributed to last-minute mobilisation.
He also said in Raila’s strongholds, turnout ranged from between 70 to 80 per cent, while those of Uhuru ranged between 80 to over 90 per cent. Wolf said voter registration in various strongholds also show more were registered in Jubilee strongholds than in CORD’s.
He said Jubilee was strong in 19 counties with CORD having 18. Amani Coalition had one.
There were, however, five counties considered battleground for the coalitions and another four under the ‘contested’ category.
But even with these, in top 20 of the 47 counties where Uhuru got more votes, he won 75 per cent of the votes cast translating to some 5.3 million votes.
Raila won 63 per cent of the votes cast in his top 20 stronghold counties where he got most votes, translating to some 4.5 million votes.
He said Uhuru won 10 per cent of the votes cast in Raila’s strongholds compared to Raila who only managed nine per cent in Uhuru’s strongholds.
“Overall there was a 13 per cent gap in turn out between the voters in their respective strongholds according to the IEBC results,” he said.
Wolf added: “Uhuru did better in looking for votes in Raila’s stronghold counties compared to how Raila did in Uhuru’s.”
He said Uhuru had more attraction of votes even as Raila remained a strong candidate.
“This could be a result of a strong campaign machinery or a deliberate move to ensure all persons vote
d in their strongholds and beyond,” he added. But Wolf also said the trend could be attributed to distribution of voters in Raila’s strongholds.
“Many of Raila’s stronghold counties are in dispersed or marginal parts of the country where the distance between polling stations is higher and people are spread out all over the landscape,” he said, adding this affects ‘the get out to vote’ challenge.
Credit: standard Digital
