Gathering The Farmers Vote

Senan Molony in the Irish Independent makes much of a poll appearing in the current Farmers Journal that appears to show that “Fine Gael has siezed control of the crucial farming vote”.  According to the poll, seemingly based on responses to a questionnaire, it seems that 41.6pc intend to give their first preference to Fine Gael, while 34.7pc intend to vote for Fianna Fail.  These findings compare with an RTE/Lansdowne exit poll in the 2002 election which specifically tested the party loyalties of the farming sector. This showed Fianna Fail had 48.2pc of farmers’ support to Fine Gael’s 37.1pc.Labour and the Greens were marginal on 3.5pc and 1.8pc.

An eleven point deficit has been turned into a seven point lead and Molony compares the loss of disaffected FF farmer support to the “Reagan Democrats”, blue collar voters who deserted to the Republicans and abandoned their traditional voting loyalties.  This is hyperbolic nonsense.  Far from presaging a significant realignment of voting behaviour comparable to his chosen example, the poll actually indicates that things are returning to normal.

The Lansdowne data distinuishes between large and small farmers, something that the Farmers Journal poll does not appear to do.  In the last general election FG led FF in the large farmer vote 50 to 45pc.  The average for both parties for the period 1969 to 1989 was 49 and 38pc respectively.  The new poll may indicate that support among small farmers has risen from the low of 13pc recorded by the Landsdowne data in 2002 (the 1969-1989 average figure for the party was 32pc).  The point is that Fine Gael has always had major support from the farming community, particularly among the larger farmers.  Let’s not forget that in its early days Fianna Fáil had an element of agrarian populism about it and oftern railed against the ‘rancher class’.

Fine Gael is more structurally dependent on the farming vote than Fianna Fáil and this can be seen in elections where the party does badly, that is when it is much less successful at being a ‘catch all’ party than its main competitor.  Both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael do much better than the other parties in what may loosly be termed rural Ireland, the other parties in the system being much more overwhelmingly urban-based.  So Fine Gael is staging something of a recovery and it’s to be expected that it does well in attracting farming votes and within the largely two-party system in rural Ireland generally.  The problem for the party is that these areas are in long term decline in demographic terms and will not yield all that many seats even if the party maintains a respectable lead come the election.