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The headline finding: 21% of registered voters say their personal circumstances have improved, 44% say nothing has changed, and 32% say things have got worse.

The picture holds across every group. Black respondents split 24% better against 31% worse. Coloured respondents, 16% against 41%. Indian respondents, 13% against 45%. White respondents, 7% against 28%. In every case the plurality answer is that life is much as it always was.

Frans argues this is a meaningful shift from late 2024 and early 2025, when the public held genuinely high expectations that the GNU would lift living standards. That confidence is now eroding, for the same reason the ANC's did before it — growth and job creation have not moved far enough to change ordinary people's material circumstances.