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No Change In Ratings For The Two Potential Irish Governments
Read more about: Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Green Party, Labour Party, Polls, Progressive Democrats, Sinn Féin 
Tomorrow’s Red C/Sunday Business Post poll shows a fall in support for Bertie Ahern’s Fianna Fáil party and Enda Kenny’s Fine Gael by two percentage points each to 33% and 25% respectively. However, the two parties’ most likely respective coalition partners should either of them form a government, the Progressive Democrats and Labour, have both posted increases of two percentage points, which overall means that two potential governments maintain the same level of support.
The PDs’ high-profile change of leadership has probably assisted their increase in support, and Labour leader Pat Rabbitte’s attendance at a Fine Gael “think-in” has clearly done his party no harm, despite criticism from some quarters that he has been getting too close to Kenny’s party. The poll was also conducted prior to the recent controversy surrounding Bertie Ahern’s finances, which may have a subsequent effect of future Fianna Fáil ratings.
Meanwhile, despite a high profile summer with Hunger Strike commemorations, Sinn Féin’s popularity has dropped by two percentage points to 8%. The Greens remain steady with 7%.
Overall, the current state of play is:
| Fianna Fáil | 33% | (-2) |
| Fine Gael | 25% | (-2) |
| Labour | 14% | (+2) |
| Progressive Democrats | 4% | (+2) |
| Sinn Féin | 8% | (-2) |
| Green Party | 7% | (—) |
| Others | 9% |
This leaves the proposed FF/PD coalition with 37%, and the FG/Labour link-up with 39%. A possible rainbow coalition of FG/Labour/Green would command 46% of the vote according to the poll.
[First published on ElBlogador.com]
You beat me to it;
It is interesting that the ‘junior partners’ in both have experienced a bounce in the polls. PDs are going for a honeymoon with McDowell at the helm, they will be relieved to get out of margin of error territory.
you may be right about the labour bounce, it may be that exposure with Kenny is paying dividend-though Kenny got no similar bounce.
I think the key is that although FF and FG have dropped, the overall consistency has been maintained insofar as the two potential coalitions remain on the same ratings as before. It should make for an interesting election if it stays as it is. It also seems that SF as ‘kingmaker’ is now out of the picture (assuming it had ever been in the picture in the first place). Of course, ratings are one thing- votes are another, and how that is transferred into seats is yet another thing again!
I wonder though which way the support departed, I think a good deal of Fg may have gone PD and FF gone Labour which means that there is a possiblity of 2nd and 3rd preferences jumping the coalition, if that occurs then the smaller parties like green and sinn fein may also benefit.
I wonder about Sinn Fein, perhaps you could help, I wonder if polls depress their support for two reasons
1) they are mobilising new support among those who tend not to vote, polls adjust to take account of likelihood to vote so perhaps the SF vote is bigger-we will see in 2007
2) the understandable reluctance of people to publicly admit to supporting sinn fein.
I wonder at the northern pattern for this, do SF experience a depression in poll numbers versus votes on teh day?
I think the kingmaker is likely to be labour or Green and we could see Labour go for a bout of fraternicide to get into power.
Yeah- SF generally tend to do better at the ballot box than in opinion polls. Historically this was probably due to an ‘embarrassment factor’ of respondents being asked if they professed support for a party which was linked to a still active paramilitary organisation. Given that this situation is no longer the case, SF’s opinion poll figures nowadays are more likely to be closer to their actual level of support. Another factor for SF is that they tend to survive on their first preferences- they don’t tend to get many transfers from other parties.
Yes my point though is the possible replacement of embarassment with the fact that Sinn Feins core vote dont have a propensity to vote regularly-thus the science of polling would tend to underweight their responses in polling. This may leave a surprise boost for Sinn Fein.
True though it seems unlikely that they will be king makers unless they are at 10-15 and even then that kingmaker role is solely in regard to Fianna Fail, who would probably prefer to tempt labour.
Are we too polite to mention that the apparent underweighting of Sinn Féin was also partially caused by organised election fraud by their supporters?
And could this be why we are having a concerted effort to tidy up the electoral roll?
There was serious reform of the voting system in the North, with ID being required for every voter, and the underweighting of Sinn Féin in opinion polls disappeared overnight.
Not being too polite at all william and that is the motive behind the clean up, whatever they say.
do you not agree though that point number 1 above may also be apt, on the ground I can see it happening.
There was serious reform of the voting system in the North, with ID being required for every voter, and the underweighting of Sinn Féin in opinion polls disappeared overnight.
Except that it didn’t really.
Millward Brown Ulster Opinion Poll, March 2005
DUP 28, SF 20, SDLP 20, UUP 16, Alliance 4, NIUP 3, UKUP 2, NIWC 2, PUP 1, Greens 1, Oth 3
Actual election results, May 2005
DUP 34, SF 24, SDLP 18, UUP 18, Alliance 4, Con
There was serious reform of the voting system in the North, with ID being required for every voter, and the underweighting of Sinn Féin in opinion polls disappeared overnight.
Except that it didn’t really.
Millward Brown Ulster Opinion Poll, March 2005
DUP 28, SF 20, SDLP 20, UUP 16, Alliance 4, NIUP 3, UKUP 2, NIWC 2, PUP 1, Greens 1, Oth 3
Actual election results, May 2005
DUP 34, SF 24, SDLP 18, UUP 18, Alliance 4, Con <1, WP <1, Oth <3.
The increase in DUP and UUP support could be accounted for by the fact that a number of small Unionist parties, some of them anti-Agreement (NIUP and UKUP) and others pro-Agreement (PUP) didn’t put forward candidates.
But SF are still 4% underweighted.
One of the reasons why SF underweighting may no longer be as severe as it was during the 80s and 90s (and correspondingly, why Alliance support is no longer grossly exaggerated) is simply that people are less nervous of expressing their support for the more “extreme” options of SF and the DUP. Public expression of those views to an interviewer whose bona fides you couldn’t be certain of would not have been wise while the shooting was still going on.
[Reposted because I forgot to change the < to <]
Not being too polite at all william and that is the motive behind the clean up, whatever they say.
I’ll also be cynical here and say that it’s the respectable unspoken motive behind the clean up.
A less respectable unspoken motive might be that if you try to make it harder to register, then the type of people who drop off the register are the less organised, the less efficient, the more marginalised. In Northern Ireland, the proportion of the eligible population who were registered had dropped by 10% before the reforms ended up being reformed. The fall-off was greatest in urban working-class areas and in flatland – on both sides of the sectarian divide.
Those types of people probably won’t vote in an election, in which case your turnout figure increases. But if they do motivate themselves to vote, they’re also probably less likely than their more settled counterparts to vote for the established political parties and more likely to cast a protest vote for the “wrong” type of politicians.
If you’re a politician from an established political party, then “accidentally” losing those types of voters may not be an unattractive prospect.
[Disclaimer which I shouldn't have to put in, but which it's probably wise to do: I wouldn't vote for Sinn Féin in a fit.]
Being honest paddy, i personally feel that Sinn Fein’s mobilising of votes that otherwise stay at home and outside the system can onle be seen as good for democracy.
Sure the clean up may be a cynical exercise prompted by either of the reasons above but if a reigster isnt in 100% health then it really should be as close as possible. I think that the poll data will show some underestimation of SInn Fein votes, by how much or how many is at this point impossible to say.
The fall-off was greatest in urban working-class areas and in flatland – on both sides of the sectarian divide.
And that is where SF is doing all its mobilisation across the contstituencies.
Paddy, there are two months between the opinion poll and the election you are citing, and it is much easier to explain the disparity between the two as a swing to Sinn Féin in that period – exactly what was happening at the time.
In any case, the disparity is so small, it is almost entirely covered by the margin of error. The figures you require only require a swing of one per cent in two months for us to believe that they correctly weighted the Sinn Féin vote at the time of the poll.
That said, there is little evidence of underweighting SF in the 2002 general election. The last polls put them on seven per cent, and they got 6.5.
Cian, as to the possibility that the ‘likelihood to vote’ adjustment is wrongly reducing the weighting of the SF vote, I think this is unlikely, because this measurement is based on the respondent’s own assessment of their likelihood to vote.
I think that if a previous non-voter has been radicalised into voting SF, they are just as likely to tell the pollster that they are ‘certain’ to vote as they are to tell them that they will vote SF.
Paddy, I can see where the problem is straightaway. The words Millard Brown. They did the Meath by-election and were out by double figures so I wouldn’t trust them to tell me if it was day or night.
Good point william, its my pet theory and im sticking to it!!
Anyone wonder where the momentum is going to come from for FF or FG in hte coming months?
“Yeah- SF generally tend to do better at the ballot box than in opinion polls. Historically this was probably due to an ‘embarrassment factor’ of respondents being asked if they professed support for a party which was linked to a still active paramilitary organisation. Given that this situation is no longer the case, SF’s opinion poll figures nowadays are more likely to be closer to their actual level of support. Another factor for SF is that they tend to survive on their first preferences- they don’t tend to get many transfers from other parties.”
I don’t accept that SF are under-represented in Southern polls. I think they are in Northern ones. Also I am increasingly sceptical about the methologies of 2 polling-companies in particular – Millward Brown/IMS and Lansdowne Market Research. The former has consistently under-represented SF in the North, while over-representing FF in the South. The latter is arguably guilty – however unintentionally – of the latter too. I think they need to adopt the Red C methodology of polling people on the phone rather than face to face, as historically face-to-face tends to favour FF. What is particularly depressing as a supporter of the govt is the fact that this poll came after the recent controversy over payments to Bertie. If Bertie wants to put the party first he is going to have to come clean on what happened or maybe resign. Maybe a new leader for FF could do what Michael McDowell has done for the PDs.
Regarding the PDs, I see an opportunity for the PDs to have a “finest hour” moment here. If they can use this crisis to present themselves as the “party of honest govt” by forcing answers out of Ahern (perhaps by threatening withdrawl from govt) or else getting Bertie’s political-head (metaphorically speaking) on a plate in return for staying with FF, then maybe voters tired of sleaze allegations will flock to them. Today’s poll seems to rule out the long-predicted “wipeout” for the party, and they are back to 2002 levels of first-preference vote. A Mail/IOS poll today apparently shows McDowell on 21% in Dublin SE, so his seat is now back in safe territory. He will be hoping this will rub off on the party’s other candidates. In my opinion he should now seize the opportunity to play the “honesty/watchdog” card to expand or solidify the PD constituency in the hope of using the next election to promise to keep the next govt honest. “Dishonest Govt? No thanks” might be an interesting election slogan to go up the pole with.
I can see only disaster for FF at the next election unless Bertie addresses this issue and pronto. We want answers Bertie. I am a traditional FF voter and while I want the govt to stay, I am seriously looking at the PDs as a force to keep FF on a tighter leash next time, and as a more honest prospect for my vote. I admire McDowell’s stance on taxation, immigration and SF too.