ELS; MBN360 POLITICS
Dr Cassiel Ato Forson now leads Johnson Asiedu Nketia across almost every demographic group inside the National Democratic Congress, according to Global InfoAnalytics’ September poll of party delegates.
Mussa Dankwah, the firm’s executive director, broke down the details on September 18, 2026, and described this section of the data as the place where the contest is effectively decided.
The clearest finding concerns education, where the chairman has lost the two groups that anchored his earlier leads. Among delegates with junior high school qualifications he now trails 28 percent to 25, and among those with no formal qualification he trails 28 to 24, having previously dominated both.
Education base slips away from the chairman
The picture widens further up the ladder. Dr Ato Forson leads among senior high school leavers by 31 percent to 22, and among tertiary-educated delegates by 40 percent to 19. Mr Dankwah’s assessment was blunt in arithmetical terms.
A candidate who has surrendered the two lowest education brackets while losing the two highest by wide margins cannot assemble a winning coalition from what remains.
Gender adds a further complication. Dr Ato Forson leads among male delegates by 32 percent to 23 and among female delegates by 30 percent to 19, with the chairman’s weakest showing among women. Mr Dankwah also noted a comparatively large pool of undecided female delegates, which he treated as available support rather than settled preference.
The generational split runs one way
Age produces the sharpest gradient in the survey. Among delegates aged 18 to 24, Ato Forson takes 43 percent to Asiedu Nketia’s 11. The margin narrows steadily but does not reverse: 37 to 21 among those aged 25 to 34, 31 to 22 among 35 to 44, 32 to 23 among 45 to 54, and 28 to 23 among 55 to 64.
Only among delegates aged 60 and above does the chairman lead, and that is the cohort Mr Dankwah described as the party’s old guard. He has argued through several cycles that generational preference shapes NDC primaries, and the September figures give that thesis its cleanest expression to date.
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On every age band except the oldest, the chairman sits below his national average.
Ethnic blocs and the undecided cushion
The ethnic breakdown follows the regional map. Ato Forson leads among Akan delegates by 41 percent to 17, among Guan delegates by 36 to 23, and among Ga-Dangme delegates by 34 to 21.
Among Ewe delegates the two are level, separated by a single point. Asiedu Nketia leads only among Mole-Dagbani delegates, by 21 percent to 17, and even there 29 percent remain undecided, which Dankwah read as a bloc waiting to see how the field settles rather than one committed to the chairman.
Where the second round goes
The transfer analysis compounds the chairman’s difficulty. If the contest narrows to two, Ato Forson retains 96 percent of his first-round support while Asiedu Nketia retains 95 percent, so neither leader is vulnerable to defection from his own column.
The outcome therefore rests on delegates currently backing smaller candidates and on those who have not chosen. Haruna Iddrisu’s supporters split 45 percent to Ato Forson, 30 percent to Asiedu Nketia and 25 percent undecided. Julius Debrah’s supporters break more heavily, with 49 percent moving to the Finance Minister and 24 percent to the chairman.
Vice President Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang’s backers are the one meaningful exception, with roughly a third going to Ato Forson and the remainder leaning toward Asiedu Nketia, a pattern Mr Dankwah attributed to the older age profile the Vice President and the chairman share.
First-round undecided delegates remain largely uncommitted in a two-way test, with 88 percent still refusing to choose. Of those who do move, 9 percent go to Ato Forson and 3 percent to Asiedu Nketia, a three-to-one ratio that Mr Dankwah expects to hold if the pattern persists.
The Global InfoAnalytics survey covered 3,615 delegates between September 11 and 13, 2026, with a margin of error of 2.17 percentage points at 99 percent confidence. With the party’s constituency elections set for October 24 and 25 and the flagbearer contest not expected before late 2027, the demographic coalitions measured this month still have well over a year in which to shift.
