Three Parties Now Sit Within 2.2 Points of Each Other in the First Weekly Tracking Poll, and the Coalition in Government Is the One in Third
CNN Portugal and TVI put the PS on 27.9 percent, Chega on 27.1 and the AD on 25.7, inside a 3.5 point margin. The government scores 35 percent approval against 58 percent negative, and 65 percent say Luis Neves cannot continue.
The first weekly tracking poll of the new political season, published on Monday by CNN Portugal and TVI, puts the Socialists on 27.9 percent, Chega on 27.1 and the governing AD coalition on 25.7. The gap between first and third is 2.2 points against a margin of error of roughly 3.5, which means the honest reading is that the three largest forces in Portuguese politics are level, and that the one currently governing is the one that finishes the table.
Behind them the shape is familiar: Iniciativa Liberal fourth on 6.1 percent, Livre on 4, the CDU on 2.4, the Bloco de Esquerda on 2.2 and the PAN on 1.3. The sample is 804 interviews, gathered across four weeks in August at about 200 a week, which is the design of a tracker rather than a snapshot: it smooths the month instead of catching a single day of it.
The government's own numbers are worse than the party's
Voting intention is the least uncomfortable finding for São Bento. Asked to judge the executive, 58 percent of respondents gave it a negative mark against 35 percent approval, with 7 percent declining to answer. Luís Montenegro personally scores almost identically: 59 percent negative, 35 percent positive, 6 percent unsure.
What the same respondents do not expect is a collapse. A clear majority, 62 percent, think this government will reach the end of the legislature, against 32 percent who think it will not; 53 percent think it should. That combination, a public that marks the government down heavily and still expects it to serve its term, is the political weather in which this week's parliamentary business is taking place.
Two ministers carry the damage
The poll broke out individual ministers, and the spread is wide. Ana Paula Martins, the Health Minister, is the most unpopular figure tested, on a net score of minus 37.7. Luís Neves, the Interior Minister, is second on minus 32.1, and asked directly, 65 percent said he does not have the conditions to continue in office. Fernando Alexandre at Education is the one who genuinely divides: 49 percent say he can stay, 47 percent say he cannot, a net minus 14.8.
Three ministers finish in positive territory, and only just. Joaquim Miranda Sarmento at Finance and Maria da Graça Carvalho at Environment and Energy both come out at plus 9.1, with Paulo Rangel at Foreign Affairs on plus 4.6.
The week it lands in
The timing is not accidental. Luís Neves faces a regimental hearing in parliament on Tuesday morning, and the Assembly debates and votes a censure motion tabled by Chega the same day. That motion is the 37th of Portuguese democracy, and as we set out when André Ventura first set his deadline, it needs 116 votes it does not have. The Socialists confirmed on Sunday night that they will abstain rather than vote against, a choice José Luís Carneiro's leadership framed as avoiding a political crisis without absolving the government.
Beyond Tuesday, the arithmetic that matters is the 2027 State Budget. The government has said it will meet every party at the end of this month, and its proposal has to reach parliament by 10 October. A tracker that puts three parties inside the margin of error, and an executive whose approval sits at 35 percent, is the backdrop against which those meetings will be held.
