Sinn Féin Pre-Election Analysis

 

Operating off the recent in-depth RedC poll, while taking other recent polls into account, one thing is certain, Sinn Féin will have a time-machine on the top of their list to Santa if the election isn’t called before Christmas.

It seems like it was only yesterday when the party was polling in the mid-30s, reaching a high of 36%, and seemed like a government in waiting if they managed to get some smaller parties and independents on board.

What must have been a scramble for candidates to even get within a whiff of a majority, now some tough decisions will have to be made as to whether they will even run a second candidate in some constituencies. Keep in mind that in some constituencies where the polled well in 2020, and were polling very well in polls, such as Donegal, Cavan-Monaghan, and Louth, there were rumours of a third candidate being added in the 5-seater constituencies where they were polling close to 50% of the vote.

When once there were talks of 60+ seats, now they are looking at breaking even, which would likely be considered a loss, since the next Dáil will have additional seats. Better candidate strategy could have pushed them over 40 seats in 2020, and breaking 40 will now surely be a realistic aim of the party. This result would almost certainly need either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil to form a coalition with them, if they choose to enter government for the first time in over a century.

For this article I will be operating off a 20% poll result, and before I get into the details, here is why. The RedC poll shows that SF are polling at 20%, despite being on a downward trajectory for some time. This 20% is excluding undecideds, and was weighted down to 18% due to turnout. SFs polling is strongest with categories C2DE, which I suppose is a social class that factors in income, employment etc. These categories are less likely to vote, and therefore the weighting was downward. It’s a fair enough reasoning, it is true that so-called underprivileged areas vote less than well-off areas, just go to an election count or look at some tallies to see that it clearly the case. Some poorer areas record turnouts of less than 20%, while some well-off areas exceed 80%. So it is a fair analysis.

But, Sinn Féin has proved efficient in mobilising that vote in the past, and with their base shrinking, it is likely that they will focus on getting the core demographics out to vote on the day. So I’m going to operate on 20%. This is in comparison with 25% in 2020, and 14% in 2016. What the poll also showed is that among definite voters alone, SF polled 16% (weighted), while including likely voters boosted them up to 18% (weighted). Likely voters will likely vote, especially if SF work their ‘Get Out To Vote’ (GOTV) operation well.

With their social demographic polling at 22% for SF, and their strongest age demographic of 18-34 year olds polling at 28%, if they get these people out to vote, it might not be the worst day at the polls for them.

They need these people to turn out to vote, as their weaker demographics of 55+ (12%) and ABC1 (15%) are far more likely to go to their local polling booth on the day.

There are also geographic areas where they could be in trouble. Dublin and Munster are lagging behind Connacht&Ulster and Rest of Leinster. In this poll the regional results were as follows, with the caveat of a great Margin of Error due to a smaller polling sample compared to the national poll :

Munster – 15%, Dublin – 16%, Leinster – 19%, Connacht&Ulster – 23%.

There are obviously stronger and weaker areas for SF within those regions. Louth will be polling much higher than Longford-Westmeath in Leinster, Donegal much stronger than Galway East, Limerick City much higher than Limerick County, etc, and the same can be said with parts of Dublin, though my geography of those constituencies is a little lacking.

Where my geography and politics is strongest, is in my native Munster, where SF are polling at their weakest. This could result in SF holding their own, but by both wins and losses, rather than by keeping the seats they currently have.

They are at risk of losing Clare* and Tipperary South**, while simultaneously are in with a chance of winning a second seat in Waterford, Cork North Central, and Limerick City.

*Clare was won by Violet-Anne Wynne who has since left the party. I don’t know if she will be running for re-election. Either way, if SF don’t win a seat here, I would consider it a loss of the 2020 seat.

**Martin Browne was elected to the 5-seater Tipperary constituency in 2020, which has since been split in two, Tipperary North (3 seats) and Tipperary South (3 seats). He is seeking re-election in Tipperary South.

They are also at risk of not winning the seats in Munster which they didn’t pick up in 2020; Limerick County, Cork South-West, and Cork North-West (Did not contest), all 3-seaters. Though not mentioned in this particular poll, it has been consistently shown that SF have been neck-and-neck with the Green Party as the least transfer-friendly party, and strong transfers would certainly be needed these 3-seaters.

Another concern must surely be the performance of People-Before-Profit in Dublin, where they are polling at 6%, after a good EU campaign in the capital in 2024. SF were surely looking at an extra two or three seats from PBP in Dublin, but now that’s not a certainty. Though outside the capital PBP are almost non-existent, and their only TD outside of Dublin (Mick Barry – Cork North-Central) will surely be under pressure from a second SF candidate.

SF are coming out of a poor local and EU performance, but historically they have been difficult elections, and they outperform those figures in a General Election, as was the case in 2016 and 2020. But councillors make and elect TDs, as well as actually electing Senators (that’s a story for another day). Without a strong council team, it can be harder to elect a TD in the area.

A cause of that was poor electoral strategy, running too many candidates, running three candidates in a constituency where they had failed to elect anyone in 2019, especially when you account for the different type of election a local election is. The same may be said to a lesser extent in national elections, particularly when it comes to transfers.

Hypothetically there’s a 4-seater constituency, and SF are polling locally at 25%. They run two candidates, Candidate A gets 15%, Candidate B other 10%. Candidate B is eliminated, but only transfers 5% (50% of their vote) to candidate A. It comes down to the wire, but neither are elected. Whereas if they ran one candidate alone, they would have been elected on the first count.

Transfers within parties are not a given, and believe it or not, 50% is a decent transfer rate. For some reason or other, many people don’t transfer within parties as well as you’d think, be it candidate familiarity, geography, or simple voting for the candidate not the party. So that’s why candidate strategy will be so important where SF will be polling between 15-25%. If they’re polling below 20%, they may stick with the safer option and just elect Candidate A.

That’s where we come to the real number that matters, bums on seats. In 2020 they returned 37 of their 42 candidates. With better strategy they could have broken 40 seats. With the addition of seats to the next Dáil, and despite currently polling below the 2020 result, they should break 40 seats this time; anything less would surely be considered a loss for the party, who have been in a constant upward trajectory in past Dáil elections.

Something which remains to be seen is if there will be another Mary Lou bounce in the run up to the elections. Currently she is trailing far behind Taoiseach Simon Harris and Tánaiste Mícheál Martin, on par with the leaders of much smaller parties such as Ivana Bacik and Peadar Tóibín. Her performances in the run up to 2020 surely had an impact on her party’s performance in the general election, but will she still be able to put on a show and inspire voters to put their faith in her and Sinn Féin?

They seem to be trying to turn their fortunes around, focusing less on contentious issues like immigration and international affairs, and banging the drum of health, housing, and cost of living, once more. Is it too late to change tactics, or will reverting back to their most popular issues clog the cracks in their support base and get them back up safely into the 20-something percent region? All they need is to get back up to that mark, and we may even start talking about increasing their Dáil representation by double digits.

Elections are won in the campaigns, especially in the final weeks and days, but Sinn Féin will be starting with a disadvantage, narrowly behind both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. The election will be winnable, but it will require a lot of work, and some smart strategy in the campaign. As things stand, they will range somewhere between 35-50 seats, meaning even their best day at the polls will mean they will need to partner with either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, or every almost other TD in the Dáil combined, in order to get into government.