The Progressive Labour Party has a massive lead over its rivals, a new poll has found.

David Burt, the Premier, also notched up much higher ratings than One Bermuda Alliance leader Craig Cannonier and Free Democratic Movement leader Marc Bean.

A total of 50 per cent of voters said they would vote PLP if a General Election took place tomorrow, compared with 17 per cent for the OBA and 8 per cent for the new FDM.

About 14 per cent remained undecided, 8 per cent refused to answer, 1 per cent planned to vote for an independent candidate and 1 per cent said they would spoil their ballot.

The poll was carried out by Global Research between September 9 and 13.

The PLP claimed 59 per cent of the vote in 2017 to record a landslide victory over the OBA, which had 41 per cent.

The PLP won 24 seats to the OBA’s 12.

The PLP retained 62 per cent of the black vote in the new poll, against 7 per cent for the OBA and 8 per cent for the FDM.

The OBA claimed 50 per cent of the white vote, against 18 per cent for the PLP and 4 per cent for the FDM.

Mr Burt had an approval rating of 76 per cent, compared with 12 per cent for Mr Cannonier and 37 per cent for Mr Bean.

The Premier won support from 82 per cent of black people and 61 per cent of white people.

Mr Cannonier was backed by 9 per cent of black people and 22 per cent of white people.

Mr Bean had approval from 42 per cent of black people and 24 per cent of white people.

The ruling party’s performance since the 2017 election also got the thumbs-up from the majority of the public.

The poll showed 54 per cent of voters approved of the PLP’s performance, compared with 12 per cent for the OBA. The formation of the FDM was supported by 42 per cent of people.

A breakdown by race showed the emergence of the FDM was supported by 42 per cent of black people and 44 per cent of white people.

The poll also asked voters what they considered to be the top problem faced by the island.

The economy came first, with 49 per cent, followed by unemployment on 25 per cent and education on 14 per cent.

A Global Research poll days before the 2017 contest showed the OBA was 11 points ahead of the PLP, but the former Opposition PLP won by 18 points.

Leslie Steede, Global Research’s director, said afterwards: “In politics, a lot can change in a short period of time and our belief is that the campaign strategies employed by the PLP in last few days resonated with voters.

“Polls are never perfect and we will be reviewing our modelling based on the result of the election.”

Dr Steede said the new poll had been collected using online and telephone methods.

He said: “Traditionally, market research surveys have been conducted via telephone which can exclude some segments of the younger population.

“Polls will always represent sentiment during a very specific point and time and, in politics, opinions can change fairly quickly.

“We asked the question ‘who did you vote for in the last parliamentary election’ and the result matched the 2017 election outcome. This lends support to the credibility of our sampling and the reported data.”

The new telephone poll of 402 registered voters was weighted to be representative of Bermuda’s population based on gender, age and race.

The margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 per cent at a 95 per cent confidence level.

• UPDATE: This story has been updated to include an additional comment from Leslie Steede about Global Research’s new polling methodology.

• To view the poll results, click on the PDF link under “Related Media”