Seat projections on foot of the last poll June 7, 2016
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
So much media, so much news. So this missed me, or I missed it. Adrian Kavanagh’s projections on foot of the latest SBP/REDC poll. Pretty interesting too given the thoughts about that poll earlier in the week. I view anything that has movements up or down within the margin of error as being only of use in terms of broad party support. And the conclusion anyone would come to from it would be that the situation remains much as it has since the election.
And Kavanagh’s projections seem to bear this out too. The poll ratings were:
Independents and Others 27% – including Social Democrats 4%, Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit 5%, Renua < 1%, Green Party 2%, Independent Alliance 4%, Other Independents 11% – Fianna Fail 26%, Fine Gael 26%, Sinn Fein 15%, Labour Party 6%.
And from this his model suggests the following outcomes:
Fianna Fail 48, Fine Gael 50, Sinn Fein 26, Labour Party 4, Anti Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit 7, Social Democrats 4, Green Party 1, Independents 18.
Consider that that would see FF jump by 8 seats. FG stay where it was. SF gain a couple. The LP lose three. AAA-PBP gain 1, the SDs – 1. the GP lose 1 and if 18 Independents were returned that would constitute a loss of about 5 Independents by my reckoning.
Here’s a thought. I’ve been very resistant to the idea that the LP could vanish entirely. It seems to me to have a base, however fractured and unloved, that would see it through. But one has to wonder if an LP that came back with 4, or indeed fewer (read Kavanagh’s thoughts in the text and he seems to suggest that it could come back with none on a particularly bad day), would be in any shape to continue. The GP did, it is true, survive, but that’s a different sort of party, smaller, and addresses a somewhat different constituency or constituencies of voters. In other words another election could be truly disastrous to the LP.
Looking through the projections intriguing to see an Ind seat loss in Dublin Central and an Other gain – would that be SD?
As to the demise of the Independents, well clearly they’d take a hit this time around, but as he himself notes, they are able to attract transfers from across the spectrum. No small trick and something that saw Independents do particularly well this year. 5 seats down and that would be a good result.
Now, all this is far far too early in the electoral cycle – usually – to be worth anything. But here’s the thing. What is this electoral cycle. An election in two years or two months or whenever means that functionally we’re in a constant pre-election mode.
That said, who of the larger parties would risk running to the country on this outcome?
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
I wonder does this ‘new politics’ spell disaster for Labour in that we could have FF or FG governments supported to a degree by each other with certain policy details agreed and a few plum jobs here and there but no coalition.
In other words Labour having no possibility of being a junior partner of a coalition. Their mild centre left credentials being in a crowded area with The Social Democrats, Sinn Fein, The Greens all there, AAAPBP and other far left closing the Left flank off and FF trying to take some of the traditional Labour vote too.
In the short term a General Election before the Local Elections will deprive Labour of new faces on the Council and new electorally tested candidates.
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The LP won’t like that!
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Yes, Dublin Central would be an SD gain – Gannon’s their only realistic prospect of an advance at this point. As was mentioned in a previous thread, the Greens’ two seats were the only constituencies where they have live chances, unless some broad left alliance won them extra transfers, so vulnerable in Rathdown.
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Tend to agree, SDs in interesting bind in a way. Unlike LP growing in popularity but difficult to capitalise on it
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The SD’s would be another crowd who would be hoping that Local Elections come before a General Election. European Elections would also help them raise the profiles for a number of potential TD’s.
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I mentioned his target seat series of posts on another thread; really fascinating stuff. You can see the margin of swing that would be needed for each party to win seats….and there are tiny swings that would benefit most – but in some cases there are then little ledges of cliffs that they have to climb to see real benefit…… and that’s where many are screwed.
So the Greens need a 3 to 4% increase for a third seat, for example (barring a local surge).
SF though, stand to gain the most from even a tiny swing (this confirms my perception from the GE). Anything up to a 5% swing and they start winning seats, but then there’s a cliff between 5 and 8%.
So even a 2-2.5% boost can get them another 8 seats or so. A 5% increase nets them another 19!!! Given their historical increase, you can’t rule that out.
Wexford – 0.07% gain required
Donegal – 0.3%
Longford-Westmeath – 1.2%
Galway West – 1.6% gain required
Dublin Bay South – 1.9% gain required
Cavan-Monaghan – 2.1%
Dublin West – 2.2%
Meath East – 2.6%
Mayo– 2.6% gain required
Tipperary – 3.0%
Sligo-Leitrim – 3.3%
Clare – 3.4%
Dublin Rathdown – 4.2%
Dublin South-West – 4.3%
Kildare South – 5.1%
Dublin South-Central – 5.1% gain required
Dublin North-West – 5.3%
Kildare North – 5.4%
Dublin Bay North – 5.4%
*
FF’s targets. Whereas a 5% swing to SF nets 18 or 19 seats, for FF, it only nets 11 or 12 (and a 3% swing might only get them 5 or 6, whereas a 3% swing to SF gets them 10 or 11.
Dublin South-Central – 0.08%
Offaly – 0.4%
Dublin North-West – 1.8%
Wexford – 2.1%
Carlow-Kilkenny – 2.3%
Tipperary – 3.3%
Cork East – 3.5%
Clare – 3.8%
Dublin Fingal – 3.8%
Dublin Rathdown – 4.4%
Louth – 4.7%
Galway West – 5.1%
Dublin Bay North – 5.8%
Dublin Central – 6.3%
Wicklow – 6.4%
Longford-Westmeath – 7.6%
Cork North-Central – 7.8%
Limerick City – 9.8%
FG targets (and imagine that party with a leader who isn’t in the early stages of dementia). A 5% swing = 17 seats, and a 3% swing = 10.
Both SF and FG are better placed if they receive a swing in the 3 to 5% range, but less so for FF.
Longford-Westmeath – 0.01%
Dublin South-West – 0.2%
Sligo-Leitrim – 0.6%
Limerick City – 0.7%
Cavan-Monaghan – 1.4%
Tipperary – 1.7%
Roscommon-Galway – 1.7%
Cork North-West – 2.1%
Kildare North – 2.2%
Dublin Rathdown – 2.4%
Cork South-Central – 3.3%
Mayo – 3.3%
Dublin Bay North – 3.6%
Cork East – 3.7%
Kerry– 3.8%
Dublin Fingal – 4.2%
Galway East – 5.4%
Donegal – 5.8%
Cork South-West – 6.6%
Carlow-Kilkenny – 7.0%
Waterford – 7.6%
Dublin Mid-West – 7.7%
Kildare South – 9.1%
*
And as for the leafy suburbs of the Labour party. They have a couple that they might scrape back with tiny movements, but as AK points out, they could as easily lose a couple of the ones they already have. For them to enjoy any kind of recovery, they need to be over 3%, but even so, hard to see them hitting these numbers any time soon. There’s a cliff of seats for them on these numbers at about 4%…but what chance of that happening?
Louth – 0.6%
Dublin Bay South – 0.8%
Dublin Bay North – 1.2%
Clare – 1.9%
Dublin North-West – 3.1%
Kildare South – 3.7%
Dublin South-West – 3.8%
Kildare North – 3.9%
Cork North-Central – 4.0%
Galway West – 4.2%
Dublin Rathdown – 4.5%
Dublin South-Central – 4.9%
Dun Laoghaire – 5.2%
Wicklow – 5.7%
*
PBP/AAA: a couple of possible pickups, but to contend for more they need to go from a 1% swing to a 3% (another of those little cliffs). Easy to see them contending in Lim and DBN, but a 3% move is a lot to ask for in a snap.
Limerick City – 0.6%
Dublin Bay North – 0.8%
Louth – 2.9%
Dublin South-West – 3.4%
Dublin Fingal – 5.1%
Cork East– 5.2%
Dublin Central – 5.4%
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