A wandering albatross asks whether polls conducted by the Social Research Foundation (SRF) and The Common Sense in Johannesburg have underestimated the standing of the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the city to the advantage of the African National Congress (ANC) and ActionSA.

The chart below shows the results of local government elections in Johannesburg since 2000, along with the results of the SRF and The Common Sense’s polling*, from March and July this year.

A first comment on the poll data is that the margin of error is fairly wide at 4.4 percentage points. This means that, at a 95% confidence level, Action SA’s support could fall anywhere between 5.6% and 14.4%, with 10% representing the central estimate. Notably, the SRF and The Common Sense’s previous poll, conducted in March 2026, also placed ActionSA’s support in Johannesburg at 10%.

ActionSA made its electoral debut in the 2021 local government elections, winning 167 000 votes in Johannesburg on the proportional representation ballot – an impressive 18.1% share of the vote. Its fortunes, however, quickly declined. In the 2024 national and provincial elections, the party won just 67 000 votes (4.7%) on the national ballot and 88 000 votes (6.2%) on the provincial ballot in Johannesburg. This set out in the chart below.

ActionSA therefore lost roughly half of its Johannesburg voters between 2021 and 2024 – a staggering decline. Yet this sort of trajectory is not unusual in South African politics. New political parties often launch to great fanfare and attract considerable positive press coverage, only to underperform at the polls, lose their shine, and quickly shed momentum. This pattern can be seen in the decline of the Independent Democrats, from 269 000 votes in 2004 to 162 000 in 2009 (its last national election, it merged with the DA shortly afterwards); the Congress of the People, from 1.3 million votes in 2009 to 123 000 in 2014 and just 14 000 in 2024; and the United Democratic Movement, from 546 000 votes in 1999 to 355 000 in 2004, 149 000 in 2009, and 78 000 in 2024.

In addition, ActionSA missed the bus on the Government of National Unity, found itself on the wrong side of the VAT increase, and then betrayed Cilliers Brink in Tshwane – effectively handing the city to the ANC and Economic Freedom Fighters.

The point put to The Common Sense is that under these circumstances it would be a brave analyst who predicts that ActionSA will improve on its 2024 result in Johannesburg. If that is right, the argument goes, then ActionSA may struggle to hold even the 67 000 votes it won in 2024.

Where does that leave ActionSA in percentage terms? That depends, of course, on overall turnout. The total number of votes cast in the last three local government elections in Johannesburg (on the proportional representation ballot) are shown on the chart below.

If the past is any guide, around one million people are likely to vote in Johannesburg in the 2026 local government elections. In February 2026, Helen Zille stated on The Common Sense podcast that she believed the DA would need roughly 470 000 votes to secure an outright majority.

Whatever the case, if the figure turns out to be around one million, and if ActionSA then repeats its 2024 result of 67 000 votes, it would receive 6.7% of the vote – not 10%, almost exactly at the 4.4 percentage point margin of error of The Common Sense’s poll.

And if that is right, and those votes accrue to the DA, then that party should be polling at nearer 46%.

The Common Sense ’s Gabriel Makin, who works closely with the SRF data, says two things. The first is that the margin of error is really important, and that the argument about undercounting the DA in the city is therefore reasonable. The second is that SRF polls are not forecasts. The SRF rarely forecasts an election result, and if it does so, it will usually do it via a tracking poll and make it explicit that the numbers are a forecast. However, his sense of things were that he believes the estimates on the DA are broadly correct and may also reflect the extent to which anti-immigrant sentiment in the city is at work.

*The Social Research Foundation’s Q2 2026 Market Survey was conducted in conjunction with The Common Sense and carried out by Victory Research among 2 214 registered voters between 8 and 31 July 2026 using telephonic CATI interviews. National results are based on the full sample of 2 214 respondents. Metro results are based on samples of 504 respondents in Johannesburg, 508 in Tshwane, and 500 in eThekwini. A single frame random digit dialling design was used, drawing from all possible South African mobile numbers to ensure that every number had an equal probability of selection. National SIM card penetration exceeds 250.0%, more than 90.0% of adults own a phone, and mobile networks cover 99.8% of the population, providing universal practical coverage. The samples were fully weighted to match the relevant registered voter populations across all key demographics, including language, age, race, gender, education, income, and urban or rural location. Turnout modelling assigned each respondent a probability of voting based on questions measuring their likelihood of participation, with the primary turnout model set at 56.0%. The national results carry a margin of error of 2.1% at a 95.0% confidence level, while the Johannesburg, Tshwane, and eThekwini results each carry a margin of error of 4.4%. The survey has a design effect of 3.7938.