Marche regional elections, polls ahead of the vote: Acquaroli overtakes Ricci, FdI ahead of the PD.

Can Giorgia Meloni breathe a sigh of relief? The Prime Minister, who has effectively tied the choice of center-right candidates in the other regions up for election to the outcome of the Marche regional elections , where outgoing president Francesco Acquaroli , a member of the Brothers of Italy party and her staunchest supporter, is seeking re-election, will surely have welcomed with a smile the numbers emerging from the survey conducted by Nando Pagnoncelli for Corriere della Sera on the Marche regional elections.

The first of the seven regions that will return to the polls in the coming weeks and months is considered the most contestable . While the results in Campania, Puglia, Tuscany, Veneto , and part of Calabria are almost a given for many analysts, the game appears more open in the Marche region, which will vote on September 28th and 29th .

Challenging Acquaroli and the centre-right coalition will be Matteo Ricci , the former mayor of Pesaro and current MEP for the Democratic Party , who leads the so-called "broad field".

A profile from the "reformist" wing of the Democratic Party, a well-regarded former local administrator, who, however, doesn't seem to warm the electorate's hearts. According to Pagnoncelli, 50.1% of those interviewed voted for the incumbent president Acquaroli , while Ricci followed at a distance with 44.8% , with the remaining 5% choosing one of the other candidates on the ballot.

According to Pagnoncelli, 57% of Marche residents approve of the president and his administration, with a whopping 37% of Ricci's voters positively evaluating Acquaroli's years of regional government.

The challenge for Ricci, according to Pagnoncelli's analysis, is specifically mobilizing his electorate : 47% of those who declared their vote for the former mayor of Pesaro believe his rival Acquaroli will prevail. As for turnout, the current estimate for those who will go to the polls is around 56 percent.

As for the results of the individual parties , according to the poll, the leading force at the regional level is Acquaroli's Brothers of Italy , with 25 percent, ahead of Ricci's Democratic Party at 21.6 percent. Further behind are Forza Italia with 7.3 percent and the League at 5.9 percent, while in the center-left field, the Green-Left Alliance is with 6.9 percent, the Five Star Movement with 6.5 percent, and then the other smaller formations with a combined 10 percent.