The majority of Colombia’s voters has not yet decided who they will vote for in the upcoming presidential election in May 2026, according to the first poll after a suspension on public polls was lifted.
In the Cifras Y Conceptos poll, only 38% of the polled voters said to have decided on who to vote for in the first round of the presidential election.
“Sixty-two percent are still undecided about who to vote for President. The race is widely open,” Cifras Y Conceptos CEO Cesar Caballero told Caracol Radio.
Ivan Cepeda, a senator of the leftist Historic Pact party, leads the poll together with Medellin’s centrist former mayor Sergio Fajardo.
Both received support of 24% of the surveyed when asked to choose from pre-determined clusters of politically aligned candidates.
President Gustavo Petro received a steady 44% approval rating, slightly less than the 48% approval Petro enjoyed when he took office in August of 2022.
The Cifras Y Conceptos poll was the first after Congress imposed a temporary ban and stricter regulation on polling. The ban was lifted on Friday, three months before the formalization of the candidates’ registration.
The purpose of the new polling law is to regulate surveys in order to “guarantee equal access to information and transparency of data in order to increase reliability,” and to strengthen the methodological rigor of polls that have historically been unreliable.
For example, the sample must include samples from all municipalities with a population of more than 800 thousand.
This sample must also include the most populated municipalities in regions that do not have any cities of 800 thousand inhabitants or more.
Additionally, the law stipulates that only polling firms that were previously registered with the National Electoral Council may conduct electoral polls for publication.
The firms that conduct the surveys must comply with laws on statistical accuracy or face civil and criminal liability.
The entire process is monitored by a technical oversight committee, whose five members have a master’s or doctoral degree in statistics.
The bill passed with near-unanimous support in Congress.
