Support for the PLP has slipped almost five percent to 34.8 percent despite a surge in the personal ratings of Premier Alex Scott.

However, the Opposition United Bermuda Party has failed to capitalise on the shift in support, only managing to increase its latest poll rating by one percent to remain five percent adrift of the governing Party with 29.9 percent of voters asked which party they would vote for if an election was held tomorrow.

The latest Research Innovations poll conducted for showed that the biggest section of the electorate surveyed ? some 35.3 percent ? are still undecided about how they would vote, would prefer another party or did not express a preference.

There was good news for both party leaders with UBP leader Wayne Furbert also seeing a strong increase in his personal standing amongst voters, climbing just over ten percent since March with 39 percent of those polled giving him a favourable rating compared to 28.3 percent unfavourable.

It puts Mr. Furbert almost exactly on a par with the last poll rating of former UBP leader Dr. Grant Gibbons who was replaced in January.

And Mr. Furbert has a chance to rise further since some 30 percent of those polled continue to be undecided about him.

Premier Scott?s personal rating jumped seven percent to 51.6 percent, but when asked how well he is doing in his job there were still more people who viewed him unfavourably compared to those who are favourably disposed, by 42.7 percent to 40.2 percent respectively.

When the figures are broken down into age groups, the PLP has 39.7 percent of the 18-35 year-olds compared to the UBP on 24.4 percent, in the 36-54 age group the split is 30.6 to 29.3 in favour of the PLP, and the governing party also led in the over 55s category by 36.6 to 34.1 percent.

Black support for the PLP has increased three percent to 57.7 percent, while it remains steady at 11 percent for the UBP.

Asked ?What is your overall opinion of Wayne Furbert?? those over 35 years-old responded with a favourable answer, while the majority of those under 35 continued to be unfavourable to the new UBP leader, however Mr. Furbert has picked up almost four percent more support in this category with 26.4 percent.

Black support for Mr. Furbert has increased 13 percent to 30.4, with 31.8 unfavourable and 37.9 percent undecided. White support is 50.4 percent with 23 percent unfavourable, according to the telephone poll of 403 people by Research Innovations done between May 1 and May 4.

Asked the same question of Mr. Scott, 58.9 percent of blacks expressed a favourable overall opinion of the Premier, amongst whites 46 percent were favourable with 49.6 percent unfavourable.

Asked if they thought he was doing a good job as Premier, 52.8 percent of blacks and 24.8 percent of whites agreed, while 28.5 percent of blacks and 66.4 percent of whites disagreed.

Those with a household income of less than $50,000 and those with more than $100,000 were more likely to say they disapproved of his performance compared to middle-earners.

In a breakdown of age groups 47.3 percent of the under-35s thought Mr. Scott was doing a good job, and 46.8 percent of over 55s also gave a favourable response, but in the 36-54 category 49.1 percent gave an unfavourable opinion.

In all age groups and for both men and women, the majority of those asked to give an overall opinion of Mr. Scott judged him favourably.

The margin of error in the survey is 4.9 percent.

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See Thursday?s newspaper for more poll results