Adrian Kavanagh's Blog

Adrian Kavanagh, 8th February 2011

There’s various predictions being made as to how the seats will break down in the next (31st) Dail, some of which include the December 2010 Newstalk local prediction survey and others involving predictions being made on the basis of constituency-level estimates based on national poll figures, as may be viewed in my politicalreform.ie posts. But one other way of getting a sense as to what the next Dail may look like is to look at the odds being offered by different bookies in terms of who is being predicted to win seats in the different constituencies. (more…)

Adrian Kavanagh, 24th February 2011

In the version of this post that was finalised in the middle of last week I was estimating Fine Gael seat levels in the mid-60s, with Fianna Fail in the mid-30s. In light of poll trends in the past few days, which in fairness have more or less replicated the trends over previous weeks, and Fine Gael’s continued strong standing/Fianna Fail’s inability to gain any ground over these weeks, in addition to the slight slippage of support by Sinn Fein and Labour’s declining fortunes, and taking into account the fact that Sinn Fein/Labour/the United Left Alliance candidates seat prospects may (especially in Dublin) be hampered somewhat by lower turnouts amongst the younger age cohorts and in working class areas,  I would now call the election results by constituency as follows: (more…)

 The 2007 General Election marked a notable break from the trend set in the previous quarter of a century of continually declining voter turnout levels in Irish general elections. The percentage turnout level increased by almost 5% to a level of 67.0% relative to the record low of 62.6% for the 2002 contest, while the actual numbers turning out to vote increase by over 200,000 from 1,878,609 in 2002 to 2,084,035.  (more…)

Labour support by constituency, 2007 General Election

Labour support in Dublin constituencies, 2007 General Election

Recent polls from RedC and Irish Times/Isbos-MRBI have focused significant attention on the Labour Party and point to significant gains being made by that party, as tantamount to a “Gilmore Gale”. But the extent to which these significant shifts in support levels towards the party can be translated into seat gains sufficient to allow Labour challenge the traditional dominance of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail may be shaped by the party’s geography of support, which will be studied in this post.   (more…)