SMRC: Ridwan Kamil Achieves Highest Electability in West Java Gubernatorial Election Simulation

If a direct election for the Governor of West Java were held now, West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil would be the candidate with the highest electability.

This was stated by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) in the release of their latest survey results entitled *Parties, Governor, and President: Public Opinion of West Java*.

According to the SMRC survey results, Ridwan Kamil consistently excelled in various simulations, from *top of mind* simulations, semi-open choice simulations, to closed choice simulations.

Ridwan Kamil as *Top of Mind*

In the *top of mind* simulation, respondents were given the freedom to spontaneously answer who their preferred candidate for Governor of West Java was.

At this stage, Ridwan Kamil was in the top position with an electability of 29.2%.

Ridwan Kamil's electability was significantly higher than Dedi Mulyadi, who was in second place with an electability of 10.7%.

Meanwhile, other figures obtained electability below 3%. For example, two former deputy governors of West Java, Dede Yusuf and Deddy Mizwar, only received electability of 2% and 1.4% respectively.

However, in this *top of mind* simulation, 52.2% of respondents did not state a choice because they did not know or did not want to answer.

Ridwan Kamil's Strengthening Position in Closed Choice Simulations

In the semi-open simulation, respondents were given a list of candidate names but were still allowed to nominate other names not on the list.

At this stage, Ridwan Kamil received the most support, namely 39%. This was followed by Dedi Mulyadi with 19.6%, Deddy Mizwar with 4.5%, and Dede Yusuf with 4.2%.

Meanwhile, in the closed choice simulation, where respondents were only given 5 candidate names, support for Ridwan Kamil further strengthened to 47.8%.

Other candidate names that appeared in the closed simulation were Dedi Mulyadi with an electability of 23.1%, Dede Yusuf 8%, Uu Ruzhanul Ulum 2.9%, and Ono Surono 1.6%.

This survey was conducted by SMRC from February 5-8, 2022, through telephone interviews with a total sample of 801 respondents. The sample was randomly selected from the population of West Java residents aged 17 years and older or who were married and had a mobile phone.

The margin of error is estimated to be around 3.5% at a 95% confidence level, assuming simple random sampling.

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