TWO independent and two internal surveys separately confirmed Cebu City Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia’s lead coming into the 2025 midterm elections.
The Boses ng Bayan survey of RPMD Foundation – data-gathering done from February 8 to 15, 2025, with results released in March – places Garcia with a strong 56% voter preference. According to RPMD, the survey employed random face-to-face interviews with 1,800 respondents, carrying a ±2% margin of error at a 95% confidence level.
“The data shows Garcia on a steady upward trajectory,” says Dr. Paul Martinez, Global Affairs Analyst and Executive Director of RPMD, adding that “Cebuano voters are convinced that Mayor Raymond Garcia is the best candidate to lead Cebu City, underscoring the Mayor’s growing trust and performance ratings.”
The University of San Carlos Department of Political Science’s Centre for Governance, Leadership and Development, on the other hand, had Garcia with a 35 percent lead following a stratified random sampling survey conducted between April 11 to 12, 2025, with 594 respondents from the North District and 712 from the South District.
The most recent of two internal surveys, meanwhile, straddles the two figures, with Garcia enjoying a 42.3% lead in a city-wide assessment held between April 7 and 15, 2025, utilizing a sample 1,535-strong that was computed based on the voting turnout of the 2022 elections, at a ±2.5% margin of error and a 95% confidence level.
This followed another internal survey, conducted during the entire month of March, which targeted 26,053 respondents from the 18 barangays that delivered 72% of the total votes canvassed in 2022. That survey has Garcia in the lead with 45.7%.
Garcia emerged the preferred candidate across all sectors – age, income, gender, residency, and household size. He was also the preferred candidate in all 18 barangays polled.
According to USC assistant professor Grace Magalzo-Bualat, the respondents in their survey showed a preference for candidates who prioritize job creation, possess strong governance platforms, and have no record of graft or corruption. / paid for by friends of Raymond Alvin N. Garcia.