As we approach the midpoint of the second day of counting in the local and European Elections, a number of trends are becoming increasingly clear:
First, the polls were broadly right.
People love to bash opinion pollsters, or to say things like “this isn’t what I’m hearing on the ground”. As it happens, the polls were pretty much bang on at local level, and (it appears) at EU level as well. The Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael votes, if anything, were slightly understated, and the Sinn Fein decline was picked up. The last poll, a week or so ago, caught Sinn Fein dropping below the two big Government Parties. It appears that slide accelerated in the final week.
The strong performance of Independents and others was similarly predicted by the pollsters, as were (roughly) the percentages of the smaller parties. It should be said that while some parties like Aontú and the Soc Dems may appear to have underperformed the polls, this is partly due to a lack of candidates – in my own Newport LEA, for example, neither was standing a candidate, which means that some voters here who may have preferred either party will not have been able to vote for them.
Second, Simon Harris is much better at politics than his opponents are willing to credit.
The Fine Gael campaign – which in a way served as a proxy campaign for the whole of the three Government parties – was masterful. For all the sneering at FG’s “cutesy” videos of EU candidates, the party had a very clear strategy of trying to make its candidates likeable and personable and separate to some degree from the Fine Gael brand. In addition, Harris spent the last four weeks sounding, on immigration, much more like a centre-right European leader than a centre-left Irish Taoiseach of the past decade. The change in tone was palpable. The polls caught this, with FG support increasing ahead of the election, and that’s how it has turned out.
Harris had a clear strategy: If you’re a middle of the road person with concerns about immigration but who is also concerned about extremism and a shift to the far right in Europe, we’re the party for you. That’s a lot of voters, and he gave them a home. If he keeps on this track between now and the General Election – with a giveaway budget in between – then FG is on course to emerge as the largest party in the next Dáil.
Third, Sinn Fein’s collapse might be hard to recover from
The Sinn Fein “cope” on these elections is that the party has actually marginally improved its standing over 2019, when these elections were last held. The reality is that the party’s vote has almost halved compared to the last time Irish people voted in an election – the general election of 2020. Sinn Fein will argue that in a general election, it might repeat the same feat that it did in 2020, and surge back into the position of being the leading alternative choice to lead a Government.
The best argument for that is, of course, that in that election RTE will probably be forced to treat it as the alternative Government, and include Mary Lou McDonald in a three-way leaders debate with Micheál Martin and Simon Harris – a format in which she shone in 2020. There are two problems with that: First, that Harris is a much better debater than Leo Varadkar, so a repeat performance is not guaranteed.
And second, that the debates were not the only reason for that 2020 success. Sinn Fein’s difficulties on policy are not likely to resolve over the next nine months or so: Immigration is certain to remain an issue, hurting the party in working class areas. The more the party moves right on that issue, the more it will energise opponents on the left like Labour who have made their purity on progressive issues into a virtue and re-energised themselves in this campaign by opposing “the far right”. Sinn Fein remains caught in a vise, and it is hard to see how it can emerge from it over the next few months.
Fourth, the “soft” left remains formidable
As I write this, there is every chance that Aodhán O’Riordáin, the high priest of Irish progressivism, might take a European Parliament seat in Dublin. Across the country, the Labour Party has had a remarkably good election compared to the mood music around that party in recent years. One of the laws of politics is that every action has an equal and opposite reaction: Emerging as the champions of “woke” Ireland is proving very good (at these elections) for Labour and the Social Democrats, especially in parts of Dublin laden with college graduates.
The Greens, similarly, have shown that they will not be stamped out. Yes, their votes are down on the last election – but only in a way that means that instead of having two quotas, candidates like Hazel Chu in Pembroke now only have one quota. It turns out you only need one quota to take a seat.
Between them, those three parties have – as is customary – close to 15% of the national vote. They also have a good organisation, strong candidates, and committed high-propensity voters who transfer between them well. They are a threat to Sinn Fein at the general election, and their leaders will all be broadly happy after these elections.
Fifth, “the right” remains a weaker force than it should be.
I’ll have more on this tomorrow, but it’s not hard to find the “right wing” vote in Irish politics: You see it in poll-topping candidates like John Snell in Wicklow, Mairin McGrath in Tipperary, Ken O’Flynn in Cork, and many other independents who have been critical of the Government from the right. Niall Boylan, whether he makes it or not, will get a good vote in Dublin, and Michael McNamara is a cert in Ireland South. Candidates like Gavin Pepper and Malachy Steenson have performed well in Dublin on the more radical side of things. It is not hard to divine 15% or so of the electorate eager to vote for something more populist than FF and FG.
But that vote is, unlike the 15% on the soft left, disparate and disunited and not transferring well between its candidates. Until that changes, Irish politics will continue to be much more left wing than it should be, based on how people actually vote.