Local Heroes

While the IPR spreadsheet extrapolates from national polls, there’s always been a (justifiable) argument made that things will be different in the individual constituencies. I’d argue that these differences tend to cancel out on a national basis, although of course, in the case of small parties in particular, you can be lucky or unlucky in that.

There’s been a number of constituency polls using mock ballot papers over the last few days from reputable companies (as opposed to other polls where IT students did a project in some areas for the local rag), and rather than pore over each of these, given they generally have individual margins of error of 4.5%, I thought it would be interesting to look at a composite of these (which would have a smaller margin of error) and compare this with the most recent IPR projections in those constituencies.

The polls in question provided the following figures;

	FF (%)	FG (%)	LP (%)	GP (%)	SF (%)	OTH (%)
Cork NC (average)	14	23	30.5	1	14	17.5
Cork SC	27	36	19	3	8	7
Donegal NE	15	29	15	0	28.5	12.5
Dun Laoghaire	18	32	32	4	0	14
Galway W	19	31	12	3	6	29
Kerry Sth	15	31	15	0	1	38
Tipperary Sth	10	31	14	0	5	40
Average	16.86	30.43	19.64	1.57	8.93	22.57

So how do these stack against the most recent IPR projections? These were as follows;

		FF		FG		LP		GP		SF		OTH
Cork NC		9.80%		40.40%		22.00%		2.00%		11.30%		14.50%
Cork SC		17.30%		41.40%		17.20%		5.00%		7.30%		11.80%
Donegal NE		21.20%		33.10%		12.80%		1.10%		22.80%		9.00%
Dun Laoghaire		11.70%		28.80%		31.70%		4.60%		3.60%		19.60%
Galway W		12.20%		35.90%		15.20%		4.30%		5.80%		26.60%
Kerry S		15.50%		31.10%		16.90%		0.50%		5.90%		30.10%
Tipperary S		13.50%		29.50%		14.40%		0.50%		5.20%		36.90%
Average		14.46%		34.31%		18.60%		2.57%		8.84%		21.21%

Well, interestingly, pretty close overall. In these polls, FF do 2.4% better, FG 3.9% worse, LP 1% better, GP 1% worse, SF 0.1% better and OTH 1.4% better. Very odd, given the protestations from some that the spreadsheet is biased against FG….

The main cause of FG’s underperformance in the polls relative to the projection is the retirement of Bernard Allen in Cork NC, and my underestimation of the individual effect this would have on their fortunes there. Interestingly though, what deviation there is in the other constituencies is also largely downwards. Even taking CNC out of the equation, the average FG vote in these polls is 31.7%, compared to 33.3% in the spreadsheet projections for those constituencies, which may temper the expectations among some that FG will significantly over-achieve compared to their national polling. They may of course do better on the day, but if they do, it will be the result of a national swing to them, rather than 43 cases of ‘local factors’ all going their way.

FF will draw some comfort that they are polling slightly higher in the constituency polls than in the projections, but given 2 of the 7 polls are in Cork City, this is likely to be at least in part a result of the Martin factor (a local langer leap) being underestimated by me. Interestingly, only two of the seven constituencies sees them make a quota despite Cork City being there twice, although they could be expected to get 4 seats out of these constituencies on these figures (CSC certain, Galway W pretty certain, Dun Laoghaire very probable, and touch & go in CNC and DNE), which is 1 seat more than I call it in the spreadsheet, so that couple of percentage points could make a big difference to them on the day. The big issue for them will be the 20-30% reported abstentions in these polls – whether these are “shy FFers”, or anti-FF voters who have yet to decide the flavour of their opposition, is the factor that is likely to seal their fate.

Labour should be happy enough with these polls overall. They’ve only 3 TDs running in these 7 constituencies, and their vote is 1% higher than the most recent projections. If I had to call the seats on these 7 polls, I’d give LP 7 seats , although 9 would be possible. This compares slightly favourably to the projections, where I have them getting 6 seats. Certainly, if offered these FPV shares at this stage of the campaign, they’d probably take them (if over the objections of Paula Desmond, who will be disappointed with the CSC figures).

After the largest 3 parties, it becomes harder to call given the margins of error, but it is noticeable that the SF vote is 0.1% higher in the polls than the projections, indicating that they should be able to translate their national fortunes locally, provided they get their voters out. The Greens however will be concerned that they under-perform in all 7 constituency polls, particularly as they are running an outgoing Oireachtas member in half of them, and so these are constituencies where their candidates are well known.

OTH do slightly better, although the nature of these candidates makes it hard to extrapolate nationally. It does suggest though that lack of high profile candidates will not impact on their appeal at the ballot box.

That’s all for tonight, I’ll have something for you tomorrow after the RedC poll breaks.

D