The “undecided voters” psychology

There are two possibilities concerning why people tell surveyors they have not made up their minds who to vote for a few weeks before an election. Some may be telling the truth. The others are simply lying.

Normally, people who are “undecided” constitute just a small portion of voters. Mostly, they are only uninterested and don’t plan to go to vote anyway. The others are partisan from Day One, knowing full well whom they are going to vote for, long before the pollsters approach them, but are not sharing the information with anyone.

Weeks before a general election in Thailand, the situation is different. Far from normal to be exact. The number of “undecided voters” is huge in nearly every popularity poll, a lot bigger than those supporting the main ideological rivals in the country.

It’s a phenomenon that can only be speculated about. When people keep their opinions to themselves, the best others can do is guess.

We can safely assume that staffs of NIDA poll, Dusit poll, Bangkok poll, Super poll and the likes have been more or less lied to. The pollsters may know that their findings are far from accurate, but they have to report them all the same.

An Exhibit A of pollsters getting scammed was before the Bangkok gubernatorial election in 2013. No popularity poll gave incumbent Sukhumbhand Paribatra a chance because every finding overwhelmingly favoured his opponent, Pongsapat Pongcharoen. The former ended up winning by a big landslide and everybody’s jaws dropped.

The findings did not fool the pollsters. The respondents did. They gave an impression that they had had enough of Sukhumbhand and were ready to embrace an alternative.

To a certain aspect, it’s the same at the moment. It was the Democrats against Pheu Thai then and it is conservatives against the People’s Party now. Big rival camps up against each other. The big difference is that, in 2013, it was obvious who was unpopular, while things are not as clear at present.

People lie or say ambiguous things when they know they have taken or are going to take unpopular actions. That was why a lot of pro-Sukhumbhand voters chose to stay silent or outrageously misdirected pollsters.

So, what does the massive numbers of “undecided” voters tell us ahead of the February general election? There are four main theories, and two of them clash head-on with each other.

The first theory is that the majority of the undecided are actually undecided. They believe in the Orange’s anti-establishment rhetoric but don’t trust the Orange either. To them, both camps are not to be believed so they still cannot decide.

The second theory is that they are actually conservative but since that kind of stand has not been popular over the years, they have told the pollsters they have not decided yet. They do so out of feeling embarrassed about it or whatever.

The third theory is that they do support the People’s Party but the noticeable rise of the anti-Orange sentiment made them not so open about it now, choosing to tell the pollsters instead that they still don’t know who to vote for.

The fourth theory is a mixture of Second and Third. Half of the undecided are secretly conservative and the other half camouflaged Orange.

Which theory is right or whether it is all of the three theories combined remains to be seen. If the first theory is largely correct, seats are up for grabs nationwide. If the second theory is the case, the Orange will have their work cut out. If it is the third theory, a repeat of 2023 may happen.

If it proves to be the fourth theory, the conservatives, who lost convincingly in 2023, can celebrate a little and the People’s Party, the reigning champion, will have to worry more.

The four theories have to do with a big group of voters, which was substantially smaller in 2023. According to a NIDA poll conducted this month, the leader of the People’s Party, Nutthaphong Ruengpanyawut, has remained the most popular as the next prime minister, but barely just.

His support has dropped from 25.8% at the beginning of the year to 17.2% in the latest survey, while Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s has jumped to 12.3% from just 2.8% early this year when he was not the chief executive.

When talking about parties, not individuals, the People’s Party’s popularity was down to 25.2% this month, from a peak of 46% in the second quarter. Bhumjaithai leapt from only 3.3% in the first quarter to 9.9% now. The gap is anything but close, yet Bhumjaithai does not even have to win the election to get to form the government, unlike its opponent.

A popularity survey in Bangkok mirrors the nationwide sentiment. NIDA has found that largest portions of the people surveyed, 47.25% and 40.20%, do not like anyone as the next prime minister and any party as the core of the next government, respectively.

That is worrisome for the People’s Party, current holder of the Bangkok trophy. To add to it, Bhumjaithai’s surge in the capital is unprecedented. Although Bhumjaithai and its leader remain a far cry from the People’s Party and Nutthaphong in terms of Bangkok popularity (26.25% against 10.05% in the party category, and 16.95% against 10.90% in the individual category), Anutin’s party had never featured in the Bangkok political conversation to begin with.

Asked if who should be the next prime minister, 47.25% seemed to discard any of the big names, be it Nutthaphong, Anutin or Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Democrat leader. When asked which party they would vote for, 40.20% were “undecided”, more than supports for the People’s Party and Bhumjaithai combined.

How much focus Bhumjaithai, which normally concentrated on the provinces, will have on Bangkok is not yet clear. Analysts currently believe that the People’s Party, the Democrats and Pheu Thai are the only outstanding competitors who have realistic chances in the capital.

This may lead to a peculiar situation in Bangkok. Fierce People’s Party-Pheu Thai battles might benefit conservative candidates. And vice-versa if conservatives run against one another, a scenario that could help Pheu Thai or the People’s Party.

Seeing the popularity surveys, Bhumjaithai might also be tempted to field candidates in Bangkok, not for the sake of constituency seats but for popular votes that might prove crucial in the end. Another ironic possibility is that the Democrats might want Pheu Thai to be strong enough to steal sizeable numbers of votes from the People’s Party so that they (Democrats) can take advantage and smash and grab.

Much will depend on how the “undecided” group will do on February 8. It’s still unpredictable, yes, but one thing has to be certain, though:

Nobody decides at the ballot booth “which colour” he or she is. In a corner of every mind, a decision must have been made long before that.