“Momentum” is one of those concepts that political pundits toss around without really knowing what it means – if it means anything at all. The raw truth about the referendums set to be held on Friday is that, conservatively, at least four in five of those who will cast votes in them have already decided, or have a very good idea, how they will vote. The true figure is probably much higher than that.
Nevertheless, campaigning is a psychological activity as much as it is a physical one. Those involved and invested in both sides of the campaign wish very much to believe that their frenetic activity in the final days of the campaign – canvassing, issuing press releases, obsessing over every radio debate, and so on – are making a vital difference to the outcome that will be revealed on Saturday morning. Both sides will wish to believe that they have “momentum” heading into the final hours before voting begins, and that the last undecided voters are coming off the fence in their direction.
Of course, a psephologist who’s analysed any of the last seven or eight Irish referendums would tell you that momentum in such campaigns tends always to trend in the same direction: Traditionally, undecided voters shift dramatically more towards “no” votes than “yes” votes, for the simple reason that a “no” is a vote for the status quo, and an undecided voter is by definition unconvinced of the need for change. If you’re not already on board team “yes” and sold on the idea of changing the constitution, but determined to vote, then keeping things as they are is, for many undecided voters, the objectively rational move.
All of this is to say that in final referendum polls, the percentage of voters saying that they will vote “yes” is the most important number. If that number is a clear majority, then the “yes” side is the clear favourite. If it is significantly below a clear majority, then the “yes” side is suddenly in jeopardy. They may still win, of course, but that victory is much less likely than if they have the support of a clear majority.
Last week, the Sunday Business Post/Red C poll found, with two weeks to go, the “yes” vote at 52% in the “durable relationships” referendum, and 55% in the “women in the home” referendum. Yesterday, by contrast, the Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks poll found those figures at 42% and 39%, respectively. In both cases, if you allocate 80% of the undecided voters to the “no” side, then the “no” side would win.
By way of illustration, in the last “major” referendum defeat for the Government, the first Lisbon Treaty vote, the final polls from the Irish Times and the Sunday Business Post had the yes side on 35% and 43% respectively. That’s the territory we’re suddenly in, if you’re a tea-leaf reader. This poll is the first published during the campaign that is consistent with a “no” side win on Friday.
The other objectively terrible news for the “Yes” side is that the Sunday Independent poll suggests that the campaign, to date, has been “won” by their opponents. Since the last Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks poll on this question, the “Yes” vote has fallen by five per cent in the “durable relationships” vote and ten per cent in the “women in the home” vote. This suggests that the more voters hear about the proposed changes, the less sure about them they are.
As we head into the final week of campaigning, this poses the “Yes” side an existential challenge: This is the week when voters will hear more about these votes than they have heard in any week to date, with big television and radio debates scheduled. What do you do when the evidence suggests your own message is actively turning off voters, and you’ve just got one week left, when they’re scheduled to hear more of your message than ever before? About the only thing left is to change the message, somehow.
If you want a sense of whether the Yes side is truly panicked, then (and I think, based on these numbers, it should be) watch out for new arguments from them in the coming days.
The “No” side, meanwhile, should enter the final week with confidence, and a simple message: If you’re not sure about these changes, you need not rush into making them. We can always change the constitution in future, after all, if it needs changing. “Send them back to Brussels to get it right” was a compelling message that we on the “No” side used in the last week of Lisbon one. “Send them back to get it right” might well be a compelling message in the last week of these two referendums, as well.