If elections were held today, Nairobi county incumbent governor Dr Evans Kidero would beat his closest rival Senator Mike Sonko though with a slight margin according to a new poll.

According to the poll by Trends & Insights For Africa (TIFA) Research Ltd, 44 percent of Nairobians would vote for Kidero compared to 43 percent who would vote for Sonko.

39 per cent of Nasa supporters would vote for Kidero while 27 percent of Jubilee supporters would vote for Sonko while 8 percent remain undecided.

Peter Kenneth came in third with four percent of the respondents saying they would vote for him while Miguna Miguna was fourth with only 1 percent.

The poll also found that although the two leading governor candidates are attracting voters from various political parties, Mike Sonko attracts a higher proportion of supporters that are not from his party as compared to Evans Kidero.

Reasons Against Voting Kidero And Sonko

Among the reasons respondents from both parties gave against voting for Kidero were mainly; failure to delivered, lack of development agenda, filth in the city,  Poor leadership skills and High tax on businesses while those who wouldn’t vote for Sonko cited; lack of expertise/skills to manage Nairobi, low level of Educational, and lack of maturity in politics.

TIFA is a full market research offering market, social and sports research.

The poll also revealed that 97 percent of all the respondents planned to vote in the upcoming elections, only 3 percent said they were not going to vote.

98 per cent of respondents affiliated to Nasa will vote compared to 97 percent Jubilee supporters.

Interestingly, the poll also cited that a significant number of respondents are unlikely to follow the 6-piece voting.

“This is an indication that they evaluate candidates on other attributes apart from political party affiliation,” the study notes.

The aim of the study was to establish the following; Political party preference; most popular Gubernatorial Candidate; Most popular Senatorial Candidate and; most popular Woman Representative Candidate.

Nairobi’s Most popular Senatorial Candidate

Jubilee’s Johnson Sakaja is the most preferred senatorial candidate with a (39%) support, putting him ahead of NASA’s Edwin Sifuna (28%).

Notably, the poll observed that the Senate race has the highest number of undecided voters (29%).

“The proportion of undecided voters for the Senator seat is very high. The top two candidates will need to work harder to persuade the undecided voters,” the poll says.

Passaris More Popular

According to the poll, Esther Passaris is Nairobi’s most preferred woman rep candidate (57%) while her closest rival Rachel Shebesh ranks in second with (25%). 15 percent of the respondents were undecided.

“Esther Passaris has already garnered majority support and therefore has a lead over her competitors,”

The poll was conducted between 1st and 2nd July 2017 across all the 17 sub-counties in Nairobi and targeted registered voters Both males and females aged 18+ years.

Data was collected through Face to face interviews and featured 829 Respondents.