Ann-Marie Vaz is holding a 10 per cent lead over Damion Crawford among voters in Portland Eastern, a survey conducted last weekend by veteran pollster Bill Johnson has shown.

The poll, commissioned by the Jamaica Observer and Nationwide 90FM, saw Johnson and his team of researchers going into the constituency last Friday and Saturday canvassing the views of 480 residents ahead of this Thursday’s parliamentary by-election being contested by Vaz on a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) ticket and Crawford for the People’s National Party (PNP).

Johnson explained that the poll has a sampling error of plus or minus four-and-a-half per cent.

When the pollsters asked: “If a new election for Parliament were being held today, do you think you would probably vote for the JLP, or would you definitely vote for the JLP, or would you probably vote for the PNP, or would you definitely vote for the PNP, or would you probably not vote as things stand now?” 36 per cent of respondents said they would definitely vote for the JLP, compared to 26 per cent who said the PNP.

The numbers were a slight improvement on those that emerged from Johnson’s poll of the constituency on March 1 and 2 when 33 per cent of respondents indicated that they would definitely vote for the JLP and 25 per cent said the PNP.

Six per cent of respondents said they would probably vote for the JLP — a two percentage point increase on those who gave the same answer in the March 1 and 2 poll. An equal six per cent — up from two per cent in the March 1 and 2 survey — said they would probably vote PNP.

The number of undecided dropped from 18 per cent in the March 1 and 2 poll to 15 per cent in the survey conducted last weekend, while the shift in the number of respondents who said they would not vote was 18 per cent to 11 per cent.

The main reasons respondents gave for their answers were, in the case of the JLP, they felt it was “doing a good job and making progress”, while for the PNP it was that they were supporters as well as the fact that voting for that party was a family tradition.

The pollsters also reported that Vaz’s support among female voters grew from 43 per cent to 47 per cent over the two surveys, while female support for Crawford grew from 26 per cent to 30 per cent.

Male support for both candidates stood at 35 per cent each in last weekend’s poll, an increase from 31 per cent and 28 per cent for the JLP and PNP, respectively in the March 1 and 2 survey.