Chega overtakes the Socialists in a Portuguese poll as the governing coalition slides to 21.7%

Chega, the party founded by André Ventura, has overtaken the Socialists to lead Portugal's latest opinion poll. The October barometer from Aximage for the newspaper Diário de Notícias gives Chega 30.7% of voting intentions, up 2.1 points on September. The Socialists (PS) are on 28.9%, and the governing Democratic Alliance (AD, the PSD and CDS) on 21.7%. DN's own summary:

“Partido de André Ventura ultrapassou o PS em outubro, recolhendo agora 30,7% das preferências dos inquiridos.”

“André Ventura's party overtook the PS in October, and now collects 30.7% of respondents' preferences.”

— Diário de Notícias, on its DN/Aximage barometer

Government on the slide

Prime Minister Luís Montenegro's AD is almost 10 points behind Chega, and about 10 points below its own result in the May 2025 election. The liberal IL is on 5.6%. Behind them come Livre on 3.3%, PAN on 2.0%, the Communist-led CDU on 1.8% and the Left Bloc on 1.7%. In the May 2025 election, Chega and the PS both won about 22.8%, and the AD about 31.8%, according to the poll tracker politpro. It projects Chega at 74 of the 230 seats, the PS at 70 and the AD at 53, so no one would have a majority.

Ventura also leads on who voters trust most as prime minister: 28%, up from 27.4% in September. The PS leader José Luís Carneiro fell from 27.1% to 25%, and Montenegro is third on 21%. Almost all of Chega's 2025 voters, 98.9%, say they would vote for it again, against 91.6% a month ago.

Loyalty and trust

ECO adds that the Socialists' own voter loyalty also rose, from 86.1% to 89.4%, and that Montenegro recovered from 19% to 21% on the prime-minister question, while the AD and IL continue their downward trend. The poll comes amid the debate on the 2027 state budget and the cost of living, Folha Nacional notes.

Treat it with care. The poll is an online panel of 501 people with a margin of error of ±4.4 points, so Chega's 1.8-point lead over the PS is inside the margin. The next general election is not due until 2029. @PeterSweden7, whose post is the source of this Signal, called it "HUGE" and said:

“We are now seeing right-wing parties taking the lead all over Europe.”

— @PeterSweden7, on X