http://www.irishelection.com/2009/05/sunday-business-post-red-c-poll/ Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:43:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.5 http://www.irishelection.com/2009/05/sunday-business-post-red-c-poll/comment-page-1/#comment-118848 FutureTaoiseach Sun, 17 May 2009 15:16:26 +0000 http://www.irishelection.com/?p=5752#comment-118848 One of the most interesting aspects of these polls is the gap emerging on SF's likely performance in the Euros - notably with respect to FG and SF. TNS-MRBI have Mary-Lou McDonald on 14% in Dublin, outpolling Eoin Ryan on 11% while Eibhlin Byrne trails on 5%. Yet Red C, which breaks down a much smaller sample of 1,000 into regional-samples of 200 or even less has SF on just 7% in the capital, prompting Richard Colwell to state in the Sunday Business Post: "makes it appear likely that the party will lose its European seat.". Likewise with Libertas, Red C have the party on 5% in Northwest, compared to 9% in the Irish Times poll. Likewise while TNS-MRBI has FG on 38% in a General Election, Red C have them on 34% in a general and local elections, but at just 32% in the Euro elections, where support for Fianna Fáil rises to 25% relative to 22% in the other contests. In part, this reflects the tendency for Euro elections to gravitate to some extent around strong personalities as opposed to mere party-allegiance. Given the larger sample-sizes by TNS-MRBI (2000 nationally and 500 at constituency-level relative to 1001 and approx 200 per euro constituency for Red C), I would afford the Irish Times poll more credibility. In the 2007 election, I was convinced that Red C was closer to the outcome because the people behind them had worked in ICM which had the most accurate poll of the 2002 election, but this was proven incorrect (FF won 41% in TNS-MRBI but just 38% in Red C on the day before the General Election). The Red C euro-poll also suffers from failure to ask respondants about specific candidates. One of the most interesting aspects of these polls is the gap emerging on SF’s likely performance in the Euros – notably with respect to FG and SF. TNS-MRBI have Mary-Lou McDonald on 14% in Dublin, outpolling Eoin Ryan on 11% while Eibhlin Byrne trails on 5%. Yet Red C, which breaks down a much smaller sample of 1,000 into regional-samples of 200 or even less has SF on just 7% in the capital, prompting Richard Colwell to state in the Sunday Business Post: “makes it appear likely that the party will lose its European seat.”. Likewise with Libertas, Red C have the party on 5% in Northwest, compared to 9% in the Irish Times poll. Likewise while TNS-MRBI has FG on 38% in a General Election, Red C have them on 34% in a general and local elections, but at just 32% in the Euro elections, where support for Fianna Fáil rises to 25% relative to 22% in the other contests. In part, this reflects the tendency for Euro elections to gravitate to some extent around strong personalities as opposed to mere party-allegiance. Given the larger sample-sizes by TNS-MRBI (2000 nationally and 500 at constituency-level relative to 1001 and approx 200 per euro constituency for Red C), I would afford the Irish Times poll more credibility. In the 2007 election, I was convinced that Red C was closer to the outcome because the people behind them had worked in ICM which had the most accurate poll of the 2002 election, but this was proven incorrect (FF won 41% in TNS-MRBI but just 38% in Red C on the day before the General Election). The Red C euro-poll also suffers from failure to ask respondants about specific candidates.

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