Independents day

Hot on the heels of today’s Kerry poll from MRBI, there’s further evidence of Indos (as distinct from smaller new parties) making headway, this time from RedC conducting a national poll for the Irish edition of the S*n.

As has been commented upon by everyone regarding every poll of the campaign, nothing much happening outside the margin of error, but is there a trend?  There was as it happens a RedC poll exactly a month ago, and the findings in this (compared to that poll) are as follows;

FG   26% (down 4%)

FF   19% (NC)

SF   17% (down 2%)

LP    9% (NC)

GP    4% (up 2%)

AAA 2% (down 1%)

SD    3% (up 2%)

Ren  2% (NC)

OTH 18% (up 3%)

Only movement outside margin of error has been a decline in FG, although OTH probably also up and GP/SDs would be pleased with movement in this direction.

Seat projections as follows;

FG	26%	49
FF	19%	32
SF	17%	28
LB	9%	15
GP	4%	3
AAA/PBP	2%	3
SocDems	3%	4
Renua	2%	1
OTH	18%	23
	100%	158

FG will be concerned that their vote continues to drift to Indos, and they will hope much of this would come back in #2s.  At this level, they are vulnerable to a number of tipping points around the country.  Labour will be relieved that the apparent drift down has been reversed – it looks pretty much as if the 7-10% they are getting is a stable vote bobbing up and down the margin of error.  Greens may take hope with the 4% here but again they seem to be going up and down the 2-4% window, similarly there’s been no trend in SocDems or Renua that could be reliably identified as a trend.  Indos are up, but even then, it’s hard to say how solid that is, dependent as they are more on sentiment (which is more transitory than many of the reasons people vote the way they do) than parties with policies and records in Govt usually are.

Clearly there’s no Govt without both FG and FF here. FG/LP is 15 seats plus short – even with SocDems & Greens, they’d be looking for an unwieldy group of 8+ Indos – it wouldn’t last a budget day, IMO.  FF+SF would be even further adrift, and a ‘popular front’ of the Right to Change variety wouldn’t even come close.

In fact, even the FG/FF combo would be only 81 seats, and over the course of the Dáil would most likely rely on Indo support.

Some time to go, and some will hope that the debate last night will sway some people to their cause, but as I pointed out before, we are at a point where not much movement can be expected – some, yes, but more than 10 seats worth?  Hard to see on past evidence.

But we’ll see.

D