NNN/Bluedot Poll: Golding Receives Average Rating as Opposition Leader

A plurality of Jamaicans, 41 per cent, believe Mark Golding has been doing an average job as opposition leader over the last four years.

That’s according to the latest Nationwide/Bluedot polls, powered by Total Tools.

But despite high levels of ambivalence about the job Golding has been doing, he can take comfort in the fact that the number of Jamaicans who believe he’s doing a poor job has declined significantly from the high of 51 per cent recorded in 2022.

George Davis has more in this report.

Since April 2024, the job of opposition leader comes with a cushy salary of more than $25 million per year. Mark Golding takes every cent of that salary.

But when the Bluedot pollsters asked 1,500 registered voters to rate Golding’s performance at his day job, they were largely ambivalent.

Forty-one per cent said he was doing an average job. Thirty-six per cent say he was doing a poor job, while 23 per cent rated the opposition leader’s performance as good.

Golding has been able to bring his job approval out of the mud of 2022 and 2023, when a high of 51 per cent of voters said he was doing a poor job.

But those voters are not ready to go with Golding. At best, his job approval has been stagnant since February last year, when 42 per cent of voters gave him that rating. It remained at 42 per cent in September 2024.

Most troubling for the opposition leader is the fact that the pollsters found a decline in the number of respondents who say he’s doing a good job.

That good rating has fallen six percentage points from the high of 29 per cent recorded in September last year. The pollsters say that dip may suggest Golding is having trouble maintaining positive momentum with the electorate.

Golding’s difficulty in escaping the average job approval rating may be firmly rooted in the fact that nearly 50 per cent of unaffiliated voters give him an average rating. That suggests a high level of ambivalence.

Thirty-eight per cent of unaffiliated voters give him a poor job approval rating, suggesting high skepticism, while 14 per cent of the unaffiliated voters believe he has done a good job.

Interestingly, 30 per cent of PNP supporters also believe Golding has been just average at his job, eight per cent say he has been poor and 62 per cent of Comrades say he has been doing a good job.

Unsurprisingly, the Laborites were less kind. Fifty-three per cent of JLP supporters say Golding has been doing a poor job, 41 per cent say he’s been average and six per cent give him a good rating.

The People’s National Party says it’s time to ‘Go with Golding’. They say ‘Time Come’. But the data suggests voters want more before drinking the orange Kool-Aid.

The Nationwide/Bluedot polls were conducted between January 21 and February 1. It has a margin of error of +/- 2.5 per cent.