KONDA BALLOT BOX ANALYSIS OF THE 23 JUNE ISTANBUL ELECTION AND VOTER PROFILES June’19 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................. 3 2. BALLOT BOX ANALYSIS OF 23 JUNE ISTANBUL MAYORSHIP ELECTION ...................... 6 2.1. General Result ................................................................................................................... 6 2.2. Districts Result .................................................................................................................. 6 2.3. Change in Districts ............................................................................................................ 8 2.4. Socioeconomic Situation of the Districts and Voting Distribution ................................. 9 2.5. Clusterings in the Political Geography of Districts ....................................................... 13 2.6. Vote Shifts ....................................................................................................................... 16 2.7. Vote Shifts Analysis ........................................................................................................ 18 2.8. Analysis on the Basis of Istanbul Neighborhoods ........................................................ 23 3. 23 JUNE VOTER PROFILES ......................................................................................... 39 3.1. Change in Preferences in Istanbul Based on Political Preferences ............................ 40 3.2. Change in Preferences in Istanbul According to Demographic Clusters .................... 42 3.3. Candidate Preference Based on Media and Social Media Preferences .................... 59 3.4. Basic Fİndings in Voter Profiles ..................................................................................... 62 4. EVALUATION ................................................................................................................ 63 5. RESEARCH ID .............................................................................................................. 69 5.1. The General Description of the Survey ......................................................................... 69 5.2. The Sample ..................................................................................................................... 69 6. GLOSSARY of TERMS .................................................................................................. 70 6.1. Questions and Response Options ................................................................................. 71 KONDA JUNE’19 BAROMETER BALLOT BOX ANALYSIS OF THE 23 JUNE ISTANBUL ELECTION 2 / 71 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY We are sharing this report with the public following the re-run of the Istanbul Metropolitan Mayoral election. It consists of two main parts and in the first part, "ballotbox analysis", the results of the June 23rd election is compared, at the neighborhood and district levels, with those of March 31st Local Elections and June 24th 2018 General Elections. Besides the actual outcome, the "political profiles" part is based on three field surveys representative of Istanbul and allows you to examine how candidate preferences have changed in various social clusters. The field survey forming the basis of our June’19 Barometer report, the 99th of the Barometer series, has been conducted on June 15-16 only in Istanbul. Within the scope of the research, 3498 people were interviewed face to face in their households in 157 neighborhoods in Istanbul representing Istanbul voter population. After the Cumhur Alliance had submitted an extraordinary appeal to the Supreme Election Council (YSK) over the results of the Istanbul Metropolitan Mayoral election and the YSK decided to repeat the elections, it has become the most important issue of the political agenda in Turkey. Therefore, we made an exception for June’19 Barometer and did our fieldwork only in Istanbul. We shared our election prediction based on this survey first with our subscribers and then with the public. Based on our prediction, we had foreseen that Imamoğlu would receive 54 percent and Binali Yıldırım 45 percent of the votes. According to unofficial results, Imamoğlu received 54 percent and Yıldırım 45 percent of the votes and this confirmed our measurement. Ballot Box Analysis When we compare the vote rates of E. İmamoğlu and B. Yıldırım considering the analysis results1 of the income distribution in 2017 on the basis of neighborhoods and districts in İstanbul, which is calculated and announced within the scope of al ‘My Neighborhood İstanbul Project’ by İstanbul University Faculty of Economics; ✓ Although there is no special difference between E. İmamoğlu votes and opposing block votes in the lowest and highest income districts, E. İmamoğlu votes has increased slightly in the middle income districts compared to the opposition block votes. ✓ On the other hand, B. Yıldırım's vote rate decreased in all districts compared to the 24 June votes of the incumbent bloc, but decreased slightly at a higher rate in the mid-income districts. - In addition, when clustering analysis is conducted according to the distribution patterns of votes in the districts of Istanbul in the elections, five different political behavior patterns emerged. 1 https://www.mahallemistanbul.com/MahallemSEGE_/ KONDA JUNE’19 BAROMETER BALLOT BOX ANALYSIS OF THE 23 JUNE ISTANBUL ELECTION 3 / 71 ‘The Clusters in District Political Geography’ section, where these five clusters are described in order to realize the basic voter movements, contains important clues. When we compare it with 31 March IBB Mayorship votes, it is seen that the vote of Imamoğlu has increased by 5.4 points and the vote of Yıldırım decreased by only 2.1 points. It can be said that the increase of the vote for İmamoğlu did not have a single source but he increased his votes from all clusters. When we compare it with the distribution of Presidential votes on June 24, 2018, it is observed that the votes of İmamoğlu increased by 8.7 points, of which 6.3 points were caused by Demirtaş or HDP votes. It is assumed that 3.7 points of the 6.1 point decrease observed in the vote of Yıldırım compared to Erdoğan is composed of the incumbent block voters who did not participate in the election, while votes at a level of 2 points have shifted towards Imamoğlu. Based on these two comparisons, it is possible to say that incumbent bloc voters at the rate of 1-2 points have shifted towards the opposition bloc, when Istanbul election was renewed on June 23. On the other hand, even in a period of deep economic and political turmoil, the transition between the blocks is only at the level of 1-2 points, which indicates how strong the polarization still is. Analysis Based on Istanbul Neighborhoods Considering the neighborhoods, we see that the neighborhoods with low participation rates are either in the periphery districts or in the city center, in Fatih. According to the previous election, the neighborhoods where participation increased at most were the coastal districts of Beşiktaş, Kadıköy and Bakırköy, while participation in the periphery districts decreased compared to 31 March. While Imamoglu had high vote rates in the same regions in both elections, it was the first finding that the number of neighborhoods, where he received more than 50 percent of votes on 23 June has increased considerably. Yıldırım seems to have lost votes in almost every neighborhood. In general, the protects his vote rate in the districts such as Eyüpsultan, Arnavutköy, Çekmeköy, Sultanbeyli, Ümraniye, which can be described as the second ring after the city center, whereas he experienced a higher rate of loss of votes in the outermost districts and central districts. In the analysis we made considering the average income level on the basis of districts, the votes of İmamoğlu in the top 10 districts with the highest income level are between 71.1 percent and 49.3 percent and more than Yıldırım in all of them. On the other hand, there is a contentious situation in the last 10 districts where the average household income is the lowest. It is understood that the vote differences in the districts, which are in the middle of household income ranking, are in favor of E.Imamoğlu. KONDA JUNE’19 BAROMETER BALLOT BOX ANALYSIS OF THE 23 JUNE ISTANBUL ELECTION 4 / 71 Political Profiles Considering the analysis of the voter profiles of the candidates and the candidate preference in different profiles together, which we reveal by comparing the data of 3 different Istanbul- specific surveys conducted during the 31 March local elections and the subsequent Istanbul elections, we reach the following findings: • Binali Yıldırım's vote seems to have remained at the same fixed point before March 31 and June 23 process. It is necessary to interpret this situation considering that the rate of swing voters decreased at every stage. If his vote remains fixed in any way, when the rate swing voters decreases, it means that the vote for Yıldırım has decreased. This situation occurs in almost all social clusters. There are very rare social clusters in which Yıldırım has increased his vote in this process. • Imamoğlu's vote, on the other hand, has increased in all components of Istanbul residents both before and after 31 March. Imamoğlu shows a visible increase especially among the youth, students, and unemployed and most importantly among the Kurds. • Binali Yıldırım's vote is in line with the Ak Parti vote in the Barometer