Exit to the Right…

The Irish Times/MRBI poll came out (almost) on time, and suggests the swing to FF recorded over the course of the campaign continued.  FG are lower than in most polls, LP about average or slightly above, SF dipping in the direction the polls had indicated.  Of the minor parties, the margin of error makes it less revealing, but on these figures a good poll for the Greens, and more at the disappointing end for AAA and the SocDems. Possibly.

OK, projection here, but (get one’s excuses in early), I have half a bottle of wine in me, and so if these are on the button I get *bonus* points.

FG	26.1%	52
FF	22.9%	41
SF	14.9%	22
LB	7.8%	11
GP	3.5%	3
AAA/PBP	3.6%	4
SocDems	2.8%	4
Renua	2.6%	2
OTH	15.8%	19
	100.0%	158

NB, I am assuming a fair few non-transferable votes in the later stage of the counts, a few seats (notably LP) benefit from this, and if this is over-estimated LP and to some extent FG may suffer.

On these figures its hard to see past a minority FG govt with FF support (until they pull the plug), but only after weeks of talks.  Even FG+LP+GP+SDs+Ren=72, and even that ragtag would need another 7 votes from the 19 in OTH (which seems impossible to me given the likely composition).

A FF-led Govt would be as implausible (if not, at the same time, impossible), if one ignores their ‘red-lines’. FF+SF+LP+GP+SD=81 but even if they agreed to talk to SF (who would have to agree to go in with them) FF would have to persuade LP (below 15 and licking their wounds) and Greens and SocDems to hitch their wagon to a caravan that could come unstuck very quickly.  FF+SF+LP as a ‘core’ would come to 74, and one could at a stretch imagine 5+ Indos coming on board, but that, again would be a precarious arrangement, and not one many would relish explaining in November when it fell apart.  Maybe.

So anyways, only a poll, but the Exit poll in 2011 was very close, and the final MRBI conducted a week earlier was slightly closer, so one imagines this is very close to being on the money.  B&A will however have another Exit poll tomorrow on RTE at 7am, and may have polled later into the day, which might make it more reliable.

We’ll see.

In the meantime, I’ll try to haul my ass up early tomorrow to run the sim on the B&A poll, and I’ll be while stuck at Dotski Jnr’s GAA match for some of the morning, hopefully the wonders of smartphone tech and my trusty election-day spreadsheet will allow me make decent extrapolations from the early tallies.  In 2011, after 15 partial tallies, it predicted the final result with a total deviation of 2.6% across the 6 totals, compared to 4.5% across the Exit poll.  Harder this time, given the new constituencies and parties – a disadvantage which won’t apply if we have a second election this year, but hopefully accurate enough for any candidates tailoring their speeches at the count centre.

Stay tuned!

D