NC Report and the enigma of a Guadiana party: from zero to four seats, and now zero again

Hay algunas encuestas que más que en el mundo del análisis sociológico deberían ser encuadradas entre los fenómenos paranormales.

The strange case of a political party that goes from zero to four seats in one week
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A month ago, I discussed here two polls by NC Report, a polling firm based in Valencia. As I noted at the time, on August 11, The Objective reported that a poll predicted four seats for Iustitia Europa (IE)—a party registered on January 24, 2024—in the upcoming general election. These four seats would be won in the Madrid constituency.

The poll had been commissioned by the party itself. That same day, La Razón, Esdiario, Periodista Digital, and Democrata.es [reported on it]. Only The Objective and Esdiario specified that the poll had been commissioned by the party itself. No other poll has awarded representation to IE—a curious fact, given that the NC Report survey credited IE with 11.4% of the vote in the Community of Madrid, amounting to approximately 401,637 votes.

The key detail is that two days earlier, La Razón published another poll by NC Report, dated August 4, which did not assign any parliamentary seats to that party. In fact, its name did not even appear in the analysis of potential vote transfers. That polling firm had released two surveys with vastly different results for IE within just a few days. Could it be because people change their minds so quickly?

That certainly seems to be the case. On Monday, La Razón published a new election poll that awards no seats to Iustitia Europa. Among the parties trailing in terms of seat count would be Podemos (2 or 3), the BNG (2), CC (1), and UPN (1). IE is not even mentioned. I checked the NC Report website to see if they offered any explanation for this mystery. Nothing. Not a single reference to a party that seems to be like the Guadiana River—appearing and disappearing.

Since we have ventured into the realm of mystery, perhaps Iker Jiménez could address this matter on his program "Cuarto Milenio," because it is strange for the same firm to assign zero seats to a party in one poll, attribute four seats to it a few days later, and then assign it zero seats again a few weeks after that. Iker frequently hosts the president of IE on his show "Horizonte," where representatives from Vox (Spain's third-largest party) never appear. He might take the opportunity during one of his live link-ups with that gentleman to ask him about this enigma.

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Image: Meta.ai.