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The Democratic Alliance (DA) and uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK) are in a dead heat in the race to be the second-most popular party among black South Africans.

This is according to new polling* conducted in late February and early March by the Social Research Foundation (SRF), in conjunction with The Common Sense.

People were asked: “If a local government election was held today, which party would you vote for?”

Among black voters, 47% said they would vote for the African National Congress (ANC), 13% said they would vote for MK, and 12% said they would vote for the DA. Nine percent said they would vote for the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

Among white voters, the DA was the most popular party, with 74% saying they would vote for that party. The Freedom Front Plus had the support of 21% of white voters.

The DA was also the most popular party among coloured voters, with 54% saying they would vote for it. The Patriotic Alliance was the second-most popular party among coloured voters, with 25% saying they would vote for it.

The sample size for Indian voters was considered too small by the combined SRF and The Common Sense research team to be considered of use in this analysis.

The data should be treated with some caution. While the SRF/The Common Sense polling data on political party support nationally and in the three metros that were polled (Johannesburg, Tshwane, and eThekwini) was weighted by looking at who would be a “likely” voter, this was not done by race. It is also important to bear in mind when understanding these data that any subset of any demographic group will have a larger margin of error than the total population. Furthermore, this survey only polled registered voters, so these are not measures of party support across all South Africans, only registered voters.

Nevertheless, it does provide some interesting insights into political party support levels among South Africa’s various race groups.

*The Social Research Foundation Q1 2026 Market Survey was commissioned by the Social Research Foundation supported by The Common Sense and conducted by Victory Research using a nationally representative telephonic CATI survey of registered voters (N=2,222), with metro samples upsized to over 500 respondents each in Johannesburg (n=503), Tshwane (n=510), and eThekwini (n=503). Fieldwork was conducted between 16 February 2026 and 6 March 2026 using a single-frame random digit dialling sampling design that draws from all possible South African mobile numbers, ensuring equal probability of selection and near-universal coverage given SIM penetration above 250%, more than 90% adult phone ownership, and mobile network coverage of 99.8% of the population. Respondents were screened to include registered voters only, and turnout modelling assigned each respondent a probability of voting based on likelihood indicators, with the primary model assuming turnout of 56.0%. Data were weighted to ensure the national sample reflects the demographic profile of the registered voter population across language, age, race, gender, location (urban/rural), education, and income, while metro samples were weighted to the demographic composition of voters in each metro. Results are reported at a 95% confidence level with a design effect (DEFF) of 1.762, producing margins of error of 2.1% nationally and 4.4% for each metro sample.