In a March poll* by the Social Research Foundation, done in conjunction with The Common Sense, Johannesburg voters were asked how they would rate John Steenhuisen’s performance as leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), choosing between very good, good, bad, or very bad.

The results show consistently strong approval across all major voter groups, with positive ratings outweighing negative ones in every category.

Among black voters, 30% said his performance was very good, and 29% said it was good. That gives him a combined positive rating of 59%, compared to just 3% who said bad, and 6% who said very bad.

Among coloured voters, 18% rated his performance as very good, and 40% as good, for a combined positive score of 58%. While 27% said bad, and 15% said very bad, a clear majority still viewed his leadership positively.

Among Indian voters, the result was exceptionally strong. While none rated his performance very good, 100% said it was good, with no respondents selecting bad or very bad.

Among white voters, 20% said very good, and 44% said good, giving a combined positive rating of 64%. Against this, 11% said bad, and 19% said very bad.

Before it entered the Government of National Unity, much of the legacy media cast the DA as a near white-supremacist movement that would seek to wind back South Africa’s welfare and empowerment policies if it were allowed into government. That narrative was probably deliberately advanced to undermine the party. But, once voters saw the DA operating in government, and none of those warnings materialised, perceptions appeared to soften across the electorate.

Steenhuisen is likely to exit as DA leader at a party conference later this month, and be replaced by Geordin Hill-Lewis, the mayor of Cape Town. The Common Sense has previously reported that Hill-Lewis has relatively low levels of voter recognition, which will have to be set right for the party to continue its growth trajectory. In Johannesburg, that problem is particularly acute, with 66% of all voters, and 75% of black voters, saying they were too unfamiliar with him to form an opinion on his favorability.

*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.