Behold, #Georgia watchers. While you were busy with events in Belarus, there have been a couple of new opinion polls in Georgia. Therefore, I and @ratishub updated our http://pollster.ge  predictions [a thread] #gvote #gvote2020

Thus far, polling looks good for the ruling #GeorgianDream party (they're not on Twitter yet, but I can tag @GakhariaGiorgi though). The weighted average gives them 51% while the @UNMGeorgia trails behind with 20%. Next are @EuropeanGeorgia and #AllianceofPatriots with 6% each.

#pandemic had been a perfect storm for the Georgian Dream. Until early this year, the party was admittedly struggling with its ratings (and pressure from opposition + media). I'd speculate that shrinking ratings sort of forced them to act more decisively on pandemic response

Thus far, it seems that their approach is working. Although a closer look (and more sophisticated statistical analysis) paints a more complex picture. While to date, GD is more likely to win the proportional race, the distribution of predictions is relatively flat (see below).

This is indicative of how volatile GD support is. As election campaigns are just starting (for reference, GD nominated Zourabichvili three months before election day in 2018), polling might change.

Potential issues that might affect GDs (and others) poll numbers are a) whether another outbreak of Covid will be curbed effectively, b) social transfers for mitigating the results of Covid, c) televised scandals similar to what had been in 2018 (Okriashvili), 2016 (Burchuladze)

...2012 (Rapaliants, Prison videos). In short, the campaign will be interesting to watch. Expect a lot of dirt coming out, though.