The Azimio la Umoja One Kenya presidential flag bearer Raila Odinga remains the man to beat in the race to State House.

This is according to the latest report of an opinion poll conducted by Trends and Insights Africa (TIFA) released on Wednesday.

George Wajackoyah. PHOTO/COURTESY

According to TIFA polls, Raila leads the other presidential candidates at 49 per cent, 8 points ahead of his main rival from the Kenya Kwanza Alliance William Ruto who was rated at 41 per cent.

Roots Party’s presidential candidate George Wajackoyah comes in third at 1.6 per cent while the Agano Party flag bearer David Mwaure Waihiga came last at 0.2 per cent.

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8 per cent of the sampled respondents declined to reveal their presidential candidate preference or are still undecided on who to settle on come Tuesday.

“With a small but significant proportion of respondents either claiming to still be undecided or declining to reveal their presidential candidate preference (8%), no candidate attains the required 50%+1 for an August 9 victory, though Odinga is close (at 49%),” TIFA report said

“However, with those undisclosed-preference respondents removed, he does achieve this requirement (with 53%), with a clear margin ahead of his closed rival (Ruto, at 45%).”


The report discovered that the support of Raila and Ruto is concentrated in their rural backyards but scattered in other regions.

“As was the case with political parties and the two coalitions, support for (the main) presidential candidates is concentrated in their home areas, but quite divided elsewhere,” the report read.

The TIFA poll also determined the Raila-Karua ticket leads in seven zones while the ODM party was dominant in six zones, which signifies that the coalitions are composed of more political parties than their opponents.

“The main contrast being that whereas ODM was dominant in six zones, the Odinga-Karua ticket leads in seven, evidently a reflection of the fact that their coalition is comprised of more than twice as many political parties as their competitors’ (26 vs. 11),” the report read.

Over the past twenty-three months, the presidential contest trend has shown some notable changes, with Ruto largely dominating from mid-2020 for nearly the next two years, with Riala only overtaking him in May.

This was after the two unveiled their running mates.

David Mwaure Waihiga. PHOTO/COURTESY

Once their positions reversed, however, it took until just the last two weeks or so for Odinga to increase the margin that TIFA’s May survey revealed. Whether he can maintain – or even increase – it, remains to be seen.

The survey was conducted across 9 zones namely Central Rift, Coast, Lower Eastern, Mt Kenya, Nairobi, Northern, Nyanza, South Rift, Western and 2,268 respondents were sampled for the same.

The margin of error of the survey that was conducted via telephone calls was +/- 2.058 per cent.