For the past 15 years, the DA has been fairly confident in their ability to harvest a majority of the vote in the Western Cape, as the graph below demonstrates. After replacing the National Party as the vote of choice for minorities, the DA finally pulled ahead and seized the province from the ANC in 2009.

But their popularity seems to have peaked, even as the Charterist parties (ANC and EFF) keep declining, This is due to a number of factors, not least the appearance of a constellation of parties appealing to Coloured voters (GOOD, PA, CCC), as well as the belated revival of the Vryheidsfront Plus among Afrikaners.

While most Afrikaners and Afrikaans-speaking Coloured people still prefer the DA, there have been some areas where the VF+ has made waves, mainly in Paarl and the Northern Suburbs of Cape Town. Whether this translates from municipal election results to provincial and national is another matter.

The DA has been particularly effective in convincing the dumber voters that if they move over to the VF+, or some other anti-Charterist party, that the ANC will get into power. This is mathematically impossible, and only black voters and a small portion of Coloured voters vote for either Charterist party.

‍The Social Research Foundation did a poll earlier this year, and the results in that respect are quite stark:

Of course, the results should be taken with a pinch of salt (a big pinch), but they do show a rather significantly race-based voting pattern.

So far, there have only been two polls done on the voting prospects of the province, with divergent results. The latest, from IPSOS, does not give its raw figures for the province, only the results adjusted for voting attendance likelihood probabilities. I compared it with the SRF poll from earlier this year:

The Social Research Foundation polling study has both raw and adjusted figures, but neither post the precise weighting process they use, so it isn’t apparent how much of this to believe.

ANC doesn’t look too good here, and the EFF is making massive gains on them. The PA doesn’t feature much on the IPSOS poll, which seems dubious to me, and the VF+ seems to be underperforming somewhat on both, considering their growth in the past two elections.

So what if the DA does fall below 50%? Well that depends how much.

Herman Mashaba’s party are making some inroads, which pose a threat to the independence campaign, since if the DA come in at just below 50%, ASA make for the least radical option to make up the seats needed, though old beef with their former DA colleagues would likely make for some grumbling and a few public spats.

The DA are unlikely to look at the PA again after the allegedly corrupt betrayal they pulled in Nelson Mandela Bay several years ago, which collapsed their coalition there and resulted in a crippled minority government. In all municipal elections following a coalition government, the DA has lost votes, and the threat of instability is a key issue for them, as is the corrupt horse-trading politics of the PA.

If I were a betting man, I would put money on the DA losing their majority, but it is only once the Referendum Party begins to campaign that we can see what impact they will have, and until we have an indication for how that element of the vote will turn out, all bets are off the table.

Unless the independence parties (RP, VF+) can push the DA low enough to need them for a coalition government - that is, below 45% - the referendum will have to wait another five years - years we likely do not have.

If the margin is small enough to rely on ASA, then we are likely to see little change in the Cape, and much less chance of a referendum ever materialising. But much of that depends on what happens at a national level.

After all, the ANC are by all accounts headed for a coalition government, and the DA have played hokey-pokey with the notion of an ANC coalition to get into the Union Buildings. The Moonshot Pact has essentially no chance of an outright majority, and the Charterist parties still command the bulk of the electorate when added together.

Yet if the DA go for an ANC coalition at the national level, their loss of support in the Cape will be immense, and 2029 will see a much more aggressive campaign for secession.