Sep 22, 2020
Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute Press Conference – Press Materials
Detailed Findings
Press Release on September 22, 2020
POP releases ratings of top 5 Executive Councillors
Special Announcement
The predecessor of Hong Kong Public Opinion Program (HKPOP) was The Public Opinion Programme at The University of Hong Kong (HKUPOP). “POP” in this release can refer to HKPOP or its predecessor HKUPOP.
Abstract
POP successfully interviewed 508 and 500 Hong Kong residents in a two-stage random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers from late August to early September. Latest results show that compared to six months ago, people’s most familiar non-official Executive Councillors have not changed much. In terms of absolute ratings, Regina Ip was the most popularly supported councillor, attaining 31.0 marks. Bernard Chan ranked 2nd, with 29.5 marks. The 3rd to 5th ranks went to Ronny Tong, Ip Kwok-him and Tommy Cheung, who attained 26.8, 26.7 and 26.6 marks respectively. The rating of Bernard Chan has registered an all-time record low since 2005. The effective response rate of the rating survey is 55.8%. The maximum sampling error of percentages is +/-4% and that of ratings is +/-3.3 at 95% confidence level.
Contact Information
| Naming stage | Rating stage | ||
| Date of survey | : | 31/8-1/9/2020 | 2-4/9/2020 |
| Sample size[1] | : | 508 (including 255 landline and 253 mobile samples) | 500 (including 244 landline and 256 mobile samples) |
| Effective response rate | : | 61.4% | 55.8% |
| Survey method | : | Random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers | |
| Target population | : | Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong residents aged 18 or above | |
| Sampling error[2] | : | Sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4% and that of ratings not more than +/-3.3 at 95% conf. level | |
| Weighting method | : | Rim-weighted according to figures provided by the Census and Statistics Department. The gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population came from “Mid-year population for 2019”, while the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution and economic activity status distribution came from “Women and Men in Hong Kong – Key Statistics (2019 Edition)”. | |
[1] This figure is the total sample size of the survey. Some questions may only involve a subsample, the size of which can be found in the tables below.
[2] All error figures in this release are calculated at 95% confidence level. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times with different random samples, we would expect 95 times having the population parameter within the respective error margins calculated. Because of sampling errors, when quoting percentages, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, whereas one decimal place can be used when quoting rating figures.
Latest Figures
In the naming survey, respondents could name, unprompted, up to 5 non-official Executive Councillors whom they knew best. The findings of the naming survey are summarized below, in descending order of naming rates [3]:
| Date of survey | 14-19/3/19 | 2-3/9/19 | 17-18/3/20 | 31/8-1/9/20 | Latest change in ranking |
| Sample size[4] | 606 | 510 | 502 | 508 | — |
| Response rate | 73.1% | 69.1% | 60.1% | 61.4% | — |
| Latest findings | Finding | Finding | Finding | Finding & error | — |
| Regina Ip | 12%{2} | 31%{1} | 32%{1} | 34+/-4%{1} | — |
| Bernard Chan | 14%{1} | 16%{3} | 16%{2} | 15+/-3%{2} | — |
| Ronny Tong | 3%{3} | 19%{2} | 12%{3} | 14+/-3%{3} | — |
| Tommy Cheung | <1%{14} | 3%{6} | 4%{5} | 7+/-2%{4} | ↑1 |
| Ip Kwok-him | 1%{6} | 3%{7} | 3%{6} | 5+/-2%{5} | ↑1 |
| Lam Ching-choi | 1%{11} | 1%{10} | 11%{4} | 4+/-2%{6} | ↓2 |
| Joseph Yam | 2%{5} | 4%{5} | 1%{12} | 4+/-2%{7} | ↑5 |
| Arthur Li | 1%{7} | 2%{8} | 1%{13} | 3+/-2%{8} | ↑5 |
| Fanny Law | 2%{4} | 6%{4} | 3%{7} | 3+/-2%{9} | ↓2 |
| Horace Cheung | <1%{13} | <1%{15} | 2%{8} | 2+/-1%{10} | ↓2 |
| Laura Cha | 1%{8} | 2%{9} | 1%{11} | 2+/-1%{11} | — |
| Wong Kwok-kin | 1%{10} | 1%{11} | <1%{15} | 1+/-1%{12} | ↑3 |
| Chow Chung-kong | 1%{12} | <1%{16} | <1%{14} | <1+/-1%{13} | ↑1 |
| Kenneth Lau | — | <1%{14} | <1%{16} | <1+/-1%{14} | ↑2 |
| Martin Liao | <1%{15} | <1%{13} | 1%{9} | <1+/-1%{15} | ↓6 |
| Jeffrey Lam | 1%{9} | 1%{12} | 1%{10} | <1+/-1%{16} | ↓6 |
| Wrong answer | 17% | 17% | 14% | 11+/-3% | — |
| Don’t know/ hard to say |
70% | 54% | 59% | 55+/-4% | — |
[3] If the rounded figures are the same, numbers after the decimal point will be considered.
[4] Before March 2020, weighted count was used to report subsample size. Starting from March 2020, raw count was used instead.
The naming survey showed that Regina Ip, Bernard Chan and Ronny Tong were named most frequently with naming rates of 34%, 15% and 14% respectively. Tommy Cheung, Ip Kwok-him, Lam Ching-choi and Joseph Yam followed, with naming rates of 7%, 5%, 4% and 4% respectively. However, 11% made a wrong attempt at citing non-official Executive Councillors while 55% had no clue.
Those 6 who were named most frequently then entered the rating survey. In the rating survey, respondents were asked to rate individual councillors using a 0-100 scale, where 0 indicates absolutely no support, 100 indicates absolute support and 50 means half-half. After calculation, the bottom 1 councillor in terms of recognition rate was dropped; the remaining 5 were then ranked according to their support ratings to become the top 5 Executive Councillors. Recent ratings of the top 5 Executive Councillors are summarized below, in descending order of their ratings [5]:
| Date of survey | 8-11/4/19 | 3-4/9/19 | 19-20/3/20 | 2-4/9/20 | Latest change | |
| Sample size[6] | 557-655 | 536 | 502 | 500 | — | |
| Response rate | 63.9% | 69.9% | 66.2% | 55.8% | — | |
| Latest findings[7] | Finding | Finding | Finding | Finding & error | Recognition rate | — |
| Regina Ip | 48.3{2} | 30.0{2}[9] | 29.5{2} | 31.0+/-3.2{1} | 98.4% | +1.5 |
| Bernard Chan | 52.8[8] [9] | 35.1[8] [9] | 31.1{1}[9] | 29.5+/-3.2{2} | 74.7% | -1.6 |
| Ronny Tong | 45.9{3} | 24.9{5}[9] | 24.2{5} | 26.8+/-2.9{3} | 90.7% | +2.6 |
| Ip Kwok-him | 41.0{5} | — | 24.6{4} | 26.7+/-3.1{4} | 81.3% | +2.1 |
| Tommy Cheung | — | 27.4{3} | 24.7{3} | 26.6+/-2.9{5} | 79.8% | +1.9 |
| Lam Ching-choi | — | — | 28.8[8] | 30.1+/-3.3[8] | 58.8% | +1.3 |
| Joseph Yam | 58.1{1}[9] | 44.2{1}[9] | — | — | — | — |
| Fanny Law | 42.9{4} | 27.3{4}[9] | — | — | — | — |
[5] If the rounded figures are the same, numbers after the decimal point will be considered.
[6] Before March 2020, weighted count was used to report subsample size. Starting from March 2020, raw count was used instead.
[7] Numbers in curly brackets { } indicate the rankings.
[8] Recognition rates were comparatively low in the rating survey.
[9] The difference between the figure and the result from the previous survey has gone beyond the sampling error at 95% confidence level, meaning that the change is statistically significant prima facie. However, whether the difference is statistically significant is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful, and different weighting methods could have been applied in different surveys.
The latest rating survey showed that Regina Ip was the most popularly supported non-official Executive Councillor, attaining 31.0 marks. Bernard Chan ranked 2nd, with 29.5 marks. The 3rd to 5th ranks went to Ronny Tong, Ip Kwok-him and Tommy Cheung, who attained 26.8, 26.7 and 26.6 marks respectively. The mean score obtained by these top 5 non-official Executive Councillors was 28.1 marks. In this latest survey, Lam Ching-choi obtained a support rating of 30.1 marks, but he was dropped due to his relatively low recognition rate. The rating of Bernard Chan has registered an all-time record low since 2005.
Opinion Daily
In 2007, POP started collaborating with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP a record of significant events of that day according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would then become “Opinion Daily” after they are verified by POP.
For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from 19 to 20 March, 2020 while this survey was conducted from 2 to 4 September, 2020. During this period, herewith the significant events selected from counting newspaper headlines and commentaries on a daily basis and covered by at least 25% of the local newspaper articles. Readers can make their own judgment if these significant events have any impacts to different polling figures.
| 3/9/20 | The Universal Community Testing Programme locates two new cases among about 128,000 tests conducted. |
| 2/9/20 | The government relaxes anti-epidemic measures. |
| 31/8/20 | The Universal Community Testing Programme is launched. |
| 27/8/20 | China Coast Guard intercepted a speedboat to Taiwan on August 23 and arrested 12 yonng Hong Kong people. |
| 26/8/20 | Police arrests 13 people who were not “people in white” for rioting in the 7.21 incident. |
| 25/8/20 | The government relaxes anti-epidemic measures. |
| 19/8/20 | Unemployment rate in Hong Kong rises to 6.1%. |
| 18/8/20 | The government announces the second round of Employment Support Scheme. |
| 11/8/20 | The NPCSC decides that the current Legislative Council shall continue to discharge duties for no less than one year. |
| 10/8/20 | Police searches Next Media and arrests Jimmy Lai, Agnes Chow and other people under national security law. |
| 8/8/20 | The Hong Kong government issues statement condemning US sanction on 11 Chinese or Hong Kong government officials. |
| 7/8/20 | The government announces mass voluntary coronavirus testing scheme. |
| 1/8/20 | The first team from the National Health Commission arrives in Hong Kong. |
| 31/7/20 | The government postpones the Legislative Council election for a year. |
| 30/7/20 | Nominations of 12 democrats for Legislative Council election are invalidated. |
| 29/7/20 | All-day dine-in ban takes effect, forcing people to eat in the streets. |
| 28/7/20 | HKU Council decides to dismiss Benny Tai with immediate effect. |
| 27/7/20 | The government tightens restrictions of group gatherings to 2 people and imposes all-day dine-in ban. |
| 25/7/20 | Hong Kong confirms 126 local infections with coronavirus disease, while over 100 patients are waiting to be admitted to hospital. |
| 19/7/20 | The government announces that some civil servants will work from home and makes wearing of masks mandatory in indoor public places. |
| 15/7/20 | US President Donald Trump signs the Hong Kong Autonomy Act. |
| 13/7/20 | The government tightens restrictions of group gatherings to 4 people and imposes dine-in ban during nighttime. |
| 6/7/20 | The implementation rules for the national security law are gazetted by the government. |
| 4/7/20 | Nine books related to politics are taken off shelf in public libraries and put under review. |
| 3/7/20 | The Central Government and the SAR Government announce multiple personnel appointments concerning the national security law. |
| 1/7/20 | Ten people are arrested for allegedly violating the national security law in the July 1 protest. |
| 30/6/20 | The national security law is passed and comes into effect. |
| 26/6/20 | The US Senate passes the Hong Kong Autonomy Act. |
| 16/6/20 | The government relaxes restrictions and allows group gatherings of up to 50 people. |
| 12/6/20 | The Central Government criticizes groups for organizing referendum for class boycott. |
| 9/6/20 | The government announces investment of $27.3 billion in Cathay Pacific Airways to avoid its collapse. |
| 8/6/20 | The government announces the arrangements for $10,000 cash payout. |
| 8/6/20 | Zhang Xiaoming delivers speech at a webinar to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Basic Law’s promulgation. |
| 4/6/20 | June 4 vigils are held in various districts. |
| 3/6/20 | Vice-Premier of the State Council Han Zheng meets Carrie Lam. |
| 2/6/20 | Local infections with coronavirus appear in Hong Kong again. Prohibition on group gathering is extended for 14 days. |
| 29/5/20 | Donald Trump announces new measures toward China and Hong Kong and says China has replaced one country, two systems with one country, one system. |
| 28/5/20 | National People’s Congress passes resolution to enact national security law in Hong Kong. |
| 27/5/20 | Over 360 people are arrested in protests against the National Anthem Bill and the national security law. |
| 24/5/20 | People rally against the national security law on Hong Kong Island. Over 180 people are arrested. |
| 21/5/20 | National People’s Congress will deliberate on national security law in Hong Kong. |
| 19/5/20 | Unemployment rate in Hong Kong rises to 5.2%. |
| 18/5/20 | Starry Lee Wai-king is elected the chairperson of the House Committee of the Legislative Council. |
| 16/5/20 | Two managers of liberal studies resign from the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority. |
| 15/5/20 | Independent Police Complaints Council releases a report saying there is no evidence of casualties in the Prince Edward MTR incident on August 31. |
| 12/5/20 | The government relaxes eligibility criteria to the Wage Subsidy Scheme. |
| 11/5/20 | Ocean Park seeks $5.4 billion government bailout to avoid shut down. |
| 8/5/20 | Eleven democrats get thrown out after conflicts occur in a meeting of the House Committee of the Legislative Council. |
| 4/5/20 | Hong Kong’s GDP drops by 8.9% year-on-year in the first quarter. |
| 3/5/20 | The government will distribute reusable masks. |
| 28/4/20 | The government announces that cross-boundary students and certain business travelers can be exempted from quarantine. |
| 27/4/20 | The government considers relaxing entry restrictions at land borders. |
| 21/4/20 | The government announces the appointment of five Directors of Bureaux. |
| 21/4/20 | The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office issues multiple statements to criticize Dennis Kwok. |
| 20/4/20 | Unemployment rate in Hong Kong rises to 4.2%. |
| 18/4/20 | 15 pan-democrats including Martin Lee and Jimmy Lai are arrested. |
| 15/4/20 | Director of the Liaison Office Luo Huining says Hong Kong needs to safeguard national security. |
| 14/4/20 | Carrie Lam claims the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office and the Liaison Office did not interfere in Hong Kong affairs. |
| 13/4/20 | The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office and the Liaison Office criticize Legislative Councillor Dennis Kwok. |
| 9/4/20 | The government launches a subsidy scheme involving $80 billion to keep workers in employment. |
| 8/4/20 | The government announces relief measures involving over $130 billion to combat the pandemic. |
| 1/4/20 | The government orders karaoke lounges, mahjong parlors and nightclubs to close. |
| 30/3/20 | Isolation wards in public hospitals are fully occupied and overloaded. |
| 28/3/20 | “Prohibition on Group Gathering” takes effect. |
| 27/3/20 | The government announces the ban on gathering with more than 4 people. |
| 23/3/20 | The government bans bars and restaurants from selling alcohol. |
| 23/3/20 | The government announces ban on non-residents arrivals at the airport from entering Hong Kong. |
Data Analysis
Survey shows that compared to six months ago, people’s most familiar non-official Executive Councillors have not changed much. In terms of absolute ratings, Regina Ip was the most popularly supported councillor, attaining 31.0 marks. Bernard Chan ranked 2nd, with 29.5 marks. The 3rd to 5th ranks went to Ronny Tong, Ip Kwok-him and Tommy Cheung, who attained 26.8, 26.7 and 26.6 marks respectively. The rating of Bernard Chan has registered an all-time record low since 2005.