We are less than a week out from the by-elections in Dublin Central and Galway West, and we have polls for both courtesy of IPSOS/B&A, TG4 and the Irish Times. You can see summaries here on RTÉ for Dublin Central and Galway West respectively, as unfortunately the Irish Times results are paywalled. I’m going to take a look at both here. There’s more insight to be gained from the Dublin poll than the Galway one, for reasons that will become clear in the body of the post, so I’ll start in Dublin. I’ve also included a table of contents below as this is a long post.
Also! I recorded a podcast on these polls with the Tortoise Shack, which you can listen to here.
Note: as always, please bear in mind that this is one poll for each constituency, and one with a c.4% margin of error, so things can of course turn out differently on the day. We can only work with the data we have, and all of the below analysis should be considered in that context.
Dublin Central
Sinn Féin councillor Janice Boylan topped the poll but, as everyone has pointed out – and as has been widely expected – Social Democrat councillor Daniel Ennis is in the strongest position on these numbers, as they would be expected to overhaul SF on transfers. From looking at the limited slice of transfer data published in the Irish Times, and filling in the gaps with historical transfer data from Dublin (health warning on this, as we don’t have a lot of figures for Dublin Central and have to extrapolate), Sinn Féin would want to have a lead of 6-7 points in the first round to come out on top.
Interestingly, if we take the general election projection model, look at the regional data for Dublin, and apply that to the baseline for the last general election, it would show that on neutral ground, Sinn Féin should be narrowly clearing that gap; current polling implies that the SDs should be around 18%, with SF around 26%. Naturally, by-elections have very different dynamics to a general, and there will always be constituency nuances, but this is notable.
I’m sharing the below image with great caution because, as I know from experience, there is limited utility in using GE polling to project the outcome of a BE. What it is useful for, however, is demonstrating how parties and candidates are perfoming versus where their expected baseline should be from general polling. Note that the projections here are rounded to the nearest half percent. So with those caveats in mind, consider the below:
There’s a few things that immediately jump out from these two graphs, but in the interest of having some structure, lets go through each party and candidate individually.
Dublin Central Party/Candidate Analysis
Firstly, Sinn Féin is the first one to discuss, as indicated above. While topping the poll is obviously never going to be a negative thing, this looks like an underperformance. Despite SF’s most recent polls indicating a 3 to 6 point improvement on the last general election nationally, they are below their GE performance here, and consequently below what one would expect from a neutral ground projection. In their defense, one would expect Boylan to not be able to capture all of Mary Lou McDonald’s voters – the party leader is a strong performer – but I don’t think this is adequate in a by-election. Generally speaking, winning candidates need to exceed their parties previous performance, given the single-seat nature of by-elections. If we look at by-elections in the last decade, the pattern is fairly clear:
Wexford is a good example here – Fianna Fáil’s Thomas Byrne was, similar to Cllr. Boylan, not a lead candidate in 2016, but in 2019 in order to win he overperformed the total result for FF candidates in the previous GE, then reverted to the mean in 2020 and lost the seat. No candidate has won a by-election while underperforming their party’s previous GE result by more than 2 points since Fine Gael’s Gabrielle McFadden (Longford-Westmeath, 2014). So while it’s certainly not impossible for SF to win here, their position in this poll is rather fragile, and in a by-election in a constituency where they are the most popular party, and given they are the most popular party nationally, this should be a disappointing sign for them.
That said, winning is a fairly universal balm. If they do post a result matching this poll on the day, and manage to hold off the SDs, the question of underperformance goes away somewhat – they did enough to win, and fundamentally that’s all that will matter.
Briefly speaking of the SDs, this poll should encourage them a lot. As mentioned previously, given transfer patterns, they are at this point the most likely party to win the seat – though nobody likes having to rely on transfers! This performance would be in line with the general improvements we’ve seen in SD support since the GE, and while holding two seats here by the time a GE comes around would be a tall order (and might cause some vote management issues for a party that does not have an extensive track record in that regard), they will obviously be more than happy to take the additional representation for a few years.
We don’t have data on this, but from the patterns in the poll, it does raise one interesting point about where their support is coming from. In current regional polling for Dublin, rising support for the SDs is correlated with drops for Labour, the Greens and PBP, which indicates (though does not confirm) that most of their support is being pulled from these parties. In this poll, given the changes from 2024, it seems likely that some of their increased support is being pulled from SF. Without proper vote-switching analysis it’s difficult to say that this is definitely the case, but it can be reasonably imputed from the numbers. If the SDs are able to make inroads with 2024 SF voters over the next few years, that could be significant.
Gerry Hutch (Independent) is an interesting case, which is probably to be expected. He’s in no position to win the by-election as per the poll, but if he does end up with 14% FPV that would be a very strong result, one that if repeated at the next GE would handily win him a seat. Now, given how BEs change incentives for voters, there’s no guarantee that this would repeat, or even if he wants to run again in future, but it is certainly noteworthy. In general, Independent candidates have seen polling crater since the GE, particularly in Dublin, so it’s notable that Hutch is not only exceeding that trend but exceeding his GE support level. As we’ll see below, his transfers could end up being rather significant.
Fine Gael should be quite happy with this poll, even though it shows them with no chance of winning. Lord Mayor Ray McAdam would win a seat in a GE on these numbers and I believe that’s likely FG’s main goal in this by election – build support for McAdam to make a GE run. There simply isn’t anywhere close to the level of government support in this constituency for a BE win to be likely, so this is very much the best case scenario for them, and holds in line with what the model would expect for a non-Paschal candidate to get on neutral ground in the constituency. This feels even better for them given the implosion in support for their government partners that this poll indicates.
For the Greens, the poll is also positive – an improvement on GE 2024 has to be the main goal for them here, and there are two factors that make it even better for them. Firstly, it would be an increase in vote despite the improvment for the Social Democrats, meaning they are holding onto their voters in face of another left-wing party surging. Secondly, their candidate, Cllr. Janet Horner, is from the less Green-friendly end of the constituency. In the 2024 locals, Cllr. Horner got 974 first preference votes (9.5%) in the North Inner City LEA, while Cllr. Feljin Jose got 1,869 FPVs (11%) in Cabra-Glasnevin LEA. Given that Horner’s “base” ought be smaller, that makes improving the 2024 GE numbers even more of a positive for them, if the poll bears out.
The numbers for Cllr. Malachy Steenson (IND) are counter-intuitive. 7% would be a strong result for someone who was very narrowly elected to council, and a significant improvement on his result in the last GE. Similar to Hutch, it is notable that he is reversing the general trend for support for Independent candidates, though again how much of this is sustainable versus how much is just by-elections being idiosyncratic is an open question. On the negative side for him, this poll indicates that he will never sniff a Dáil seat as long as Hutch is around, but it also indicates there is a sizeable pool for him to fish in if Hutch decides not to go again in future. How many of those people would vote for him in future is another open question. The poll indicates around 29% of Hutch voters would transfer to Steenson, but would all of them show up without Hutch on the ballot? I’m not so sure.
For Labour, the poll is fine. Only a small dip in vote when fielding a first time candidate while your national polling is flat isn’t a bad outcome and indicates their support level in Dublin Central is generally holding. It’s also a good sign for upcoming local elections, which I feel is the immediate goal here – Labour have no seats in the LEA at the moment (this is partially self-inflicted by running two in Cabra-Glasnevin) and this result indicates they should be looking to bring in at least one next time. However, there are things that will worry them – Hutch replicating this performance in a general election would see him beat out incumbent TD Marie Sherlock, and falling behind the Greens might also raise a few flags. But there is only so much one can extrapolate for how an incumbent TD will fare in a GE from a first-time candidate’s polling in a GE. So in general I’d view this as fairly unremarkable for them.
Let’s be blunt about Fianna Fáil – 4% would be catastrophic. This wasn’t a seat they had a hope of winning – Dublin Central was FF’s 2nd weakest constituency in the last GE – but if this is the result on the day, it would be a further kicking for a party that has watched its support in the constituency slip lower and lower in each electoral cycle since 2011. FF’s polling in Dublin hasn’t dropped significantly since the last GE, so this would be a significant underperformance against what might be expected on neutral ground, and this is an incumbent councillor running, not someone with zero local profile.
For People Before Profit/Solidarity, a result in line with this poll would also be disappointing – they were very close to winning a seat in North Inner City in the locals, and have grown their vote share here in the last GE. If they do land on 3%, this would not only be a decline indicating that a chunk of their voters are looking elsewhere, but also that they aren’t capturing a significant number of Clare Daly GE 24 voters. That would be a poor result for an explicitly anti-government campaign in a constituency where the poll indicates there is a decline in support for the government parties.
Finally Aontú – there isn’t much to say here. They aren’t even broken out in the poll, implying a sub-2% support level. This isn’t a strong area for them – Ian Noel Smyth has fared poorly in three straight elections – but their general polling is peaking and there’s certainly votes available on the right. However, they appear to have been completely crowded out by Steenson and Hutch.
Dublin Central Transfer Analysis
It is somewhat cliche to say that elections in Ireland come down to transfers, but it is also frequently true. Given the dispersed nature of the vote in this by-election, it will almost certainly be a factor here as well, presuming the poll is accurate.
We did get some second preference figures in the poll; unfortunately in the aggregate these aren’t particularly helpful. Saying, for example, that the Social Democrats will get 15% of second preferences tells us very little – if, for example, a significant number of those are Sinn Féin second preferences, they are very unlikely to see any of them. We did get some further break-outs posted by the Irish Times but these were highly partial and selectively released, meaning we have to rely heavily on historical data. This poses a challenge insofar as that we didn’t see transfers in the general election that could prove critical here – for example, from Labour or Gerry Hutch, or to Sinn Féin. To fill these gaps, we need to look at general transfer patterns across Dublin and extrapolate from there. This is not a high confidence measure, so please keep that caveat in mind for this section.
What we do know from the parts of the poll that were published is that the Greens, Labour and PBP transfers heavily favour the SDs over SF – which tallies with what would be expected from looking at the historical data. We also have details of the poll’s transfer rate from FG and FF to the SDs, and while we have no comparative figures, we can safely take from historical data that SF will attract very few transfers from those parties. On the other hand it appears Hutch’s transfers heavily favour SF over the SDs. This could be significant, but it is worth noting that in aggregate on these poll numbers, this does not do enough to offset the boost the SDs are shown to get from the other parties.
It’s even likely we end up in a scenario where Fine Gael transfers are the deciding factor between two opposition parties. At that point, non-transferrable votes could become a factor; while FG votes will very likely favour the SDs, how many voters will choose to preference neither? How many will add a preference for the SDs in order to “keep out” SF or Hutch? That kind of dynamic could end up making a difference. Similarly for SF, they need Hutch voters to continue their preferences for SF, and given Hutch’s efforts to activate non-voters, could we see a significant chunk of those ballots also become non-transferable (especially since Steenson, the preferred second option of a plurality of Hutch voters per this poll, will already be eliminated by that point)?
Those – along with the rate at which other left-wing parties are transferring to the SDs vs SF – will be crucial. The historic data and information from the poll does point to the SDs being able to close the gap, but it will be worth looking out for under- and over- performances on the day.
Dublin Central Projection
The simple narrative is the one that has been suspected for a long time, and is re-enforced by this poll: On these numbers, the Social Democrats should be expected to win this election. But it’s not a romp, and despite the poll being below what Sinn Féin should expect, they are still very much in this. It wouldn’t take a huge variation in the transfers – or even something like a bigger turnout for Hutch on the day, resulting in more transfers to SF – to change the outcome.
I would put the SDs chances of winning in the 60% range if the result we get on the day matches this poll. It’s certainly the median outcome based on these numbers, and SF will likely (though not definitely!) need to improve their FPV share to get a different result. And unless the poll is way off, it’s hard to see anyone else having a shot at winning.
Galway West
It does feel a little futile to compare the Galway West poll to the last general election. There are two huge absences from the race in Independents Catherine Connolly and Noel Grealish, the former of whom has ascended to the presidency while the latter is a junior minister in the government. It was always clear that this would lead to a high level of volatility in this race, as over 22% of General Election 2024 voters would have to find a new preferred candidate. And while that can explain some of what we’ve seen in this poll, it doesn’t explain all of it.
To say what it can explain: the apparent surge in support for Labour Cllr. Helen Ogbu and the Social Democrats’ Míde Nic Fhionnlaoich (and the smaller bump for former Green councillor Niall Murphy) are likely at least partially due to Connolly voters finding a new candidate to support. Similarly, Independent Ireland Cllr. Noel Thomas is probably picking up some anti-migrant Grealish voters, and I suspect that geography is giving some of them to Fine Gael Senator Séan Kyne as well.
But the things it can’t explain are the apparent collapse in support for Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin. This is an alarming drop in support for both parties and given that there were so many votes up for grabs on both right and left without Connolly and Grealish, and requires a little more to explain, and I’ll give my thoughts in the next section.
What this means overall however, is that this poll doesn’t really clarify anything. There are three blocs, as we knew before this poll: the government, left, and right, as well as some localists. On these numbers, it is extremely unclear which of these blocs wins. Including Independents and minor parties that can be easily ideologically placed, such as Welby and Sheila Garrity, the blocs look like this: Gov 25%, Left 39%, Right 29%. That looks pretty good for the left, but it’s worth noting that the other two blocs could be expected to have higher transfer affinity between them, depending on who the lead left candidate is.
So in short, this is really unclear, and comparing to the projected data like we did in Dublin doesn’t really help as, again, no Connolly or Grealish. I will add one note: given the volatility and uncertainty around this constituency and also the challenges with polling certain areas of it, I am a little more cautious of this than of the Dublin poll. And maybe that’s completely off base, but it does feel that way. But either way, it’s the only information we have, so once again we have to work with it.
It should be noted that there have apparently been internal polls conducted by Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil. I cannot verify this, but I have been informed that both apparently indicate a closer race across the board, better performance for their respective candidates and less support for Labour, II and FG. However, as I am only aware of partial, second hand information from these, I can’t really factor them in here; rather these should just be considered a further reminder that this race is volatile and outcomes may potentially end up rather different from the public poll.
(EDIT: in the hours following this post, one of the internal polls, or at least something purporting to be it, has leaked. It does not indicate a closer race than the IPSOS/B&A poll. This is why we don’t factor in unconfirmed information!)
Galway West Party/Candidate Analysis
This is a pretty solid result for Fine Gael. It puts Senator Kyne on top of the poll and despite the overall low support for the government bloc, does give him a path to winning. If he can stay ahead of Independent Ireland until they are eliminated, it is likely that their transfers would favour Fine Gael over most left-wing alternatives. In a scenario where II are eliminated in a position where the remaining two candidates are Kyne and a left-winger, and the gap between the two is close, Kyne could potentially come out on top. On the other hand, there’s plenty of potential on these numbers for him to fall out of the top two as transfers are distributed. His position is simultaneously strong but also rather uncomfortable.
Independent Ireland’s position is interesting. Cllr. Noel Thomas was a favourite to win this election – which while very plausible, was overstated in some places. He does have a very decent pool of likely transfers from the right, but I suspect will be toxic to the left to a degree that even the government parties aren’t. He hasn’t soaked up as much of the Grealish vote as expected (geography may be a factor here!) and it looks like Cllr. Welby is taking a good chunk of the vote in Conemara, though he would be expected to transfer heavily to Cllr. Thomas. Similarly to Fine Gael, his position is strong but also uncomfortable. The difference I think is that even with the fuel protests and so on, II are under less pressure to win a seat here right now. These numbers would be very good for them going into an GE, and would I suspect make Noel Grealish a bit uncomfortable. As for this election, he absolutely can win on these numbers, but will likely need a good bit of help from Sinn Féin transfers or for Sinn Féin to be the lead left party.
This is a crazy good poll for Labour, and I’m not quite sure what to make of it. With the poll apparently having Cllr. Helen Ogbu on 15% in the city, that implies (depending on how they weighted it) she’s on 8-10% in the county, which seems wild given her electoral history – in GE24, tallies indicate she was on around 1.7% FPV in the county. On the one hand, I think if there is an error in this poll, this is most likely to be here. On the other, we’ve seen in the last few elections that while Labour continue to struggle broadly, they are capable of picking their battles and winning seats they heavily focus on, and Galway West does have a large latent historical Labour vote. A lot of this went to Catherine Connolly, so it’s not implausible for parts of that to be coming “home”. But basing things on this poll alone, Ogbu is positioned as comfortably the lead left candidate. If it bears out like this on the day, and particularly if the transfer pact arranged between the left-wing candidates makes a difference, she has a good chance of winning.
In the abstract, this is a good poll for the Social Democrats. It would be their best ever result in the constituency, put them in a very viable position heading into a general election, and tracks slightly ahead of what their regional polling indicates. However, being behind Labour puts a damper on a lot of this as realistically to win they will need to be eliminated after Labour. It’s not implausible for them to close the gap to Labour on transfers, but it’s not the most likely outcome if the poll is accurate on FPV numbers. If the Greens underperform relative to this poll and SF and PBP overperform, it becomes more plausible.
This is the second really rough poll for Fianna Fáil. 8% would be the worst result for FF in Galway West ever. With their candidate, Cllr. Cillian Keane, based in the east of the county, I would speculate that FF are primarily losing votes to Indpendent Ireland (Noel Thomas is himself a former Fianna Fáiler) and Cllr. Thomas Welby in the west of the county and to Fine Gael and Cllr. Mike Cubbard in the city and the centre of the county. While much has been, rightly, made of Sinn Féin’s poor polling in these by-elections and what that means for their leadership, the same question should apply equally to FF. If this is the result on the day, it should be considered fairly catastrophic, especially if Fine Gael are able to put in the much more robust performances indicated by the poll.
Speaking of rough polls, this would also be a really poor result for Sinn Féin, only around half their GE vote and well below where national polling would benchmark them. To be behind FG and II is one thing, even expected, but to be behind two other left-wing parties (we can have the argument about how left-wing SF are currently another day, let’s just accept the paradigm for these purposes) and barely clear of a third is really poor. For their vote to be going down in an election where a poll indicates a strong swing against the two main government parties (25% in this poll versus c.36% in the GE) is a problem. While we can’t say definitively, the numbers in this poll imply that SF’s vote is coming under pressure from all directions, which naturally once again calls into question how wise their increasing drift away from the left has been.
I don’t have much to say about Cllr. Mike Cubbard. Getting 7% would be nice for him no doubt, and a big improvement on his GE performance but he’s not viable here, nor is this number showing him as viable in a future GE.
While they aren’t competitive at all, this is another encouraging poll for the Green Party; if on the day they can double their GE 2024 support, I think they’ll take that. It should be noted that a seat here in a future GE would not be close on these numbers, doubly so given the apparent support for Labour and the Soc Dems, but it indicates there is still a Green vote present. This could be relevant if they are approaching things with an eye to future local elections, which I suspect is the most immediate goal in getting the party back up on its feet.
As for the others, I’ll cover them quickly. Aontú and PBP are about where we would expect them to be given general polling trends and past performance; I doubt either will have been expecting huge things in this constituency. Cllr. Thomas Welby (IND) has decent support at 6% but, similar to Cllr. Cubbard, it’s not at the level that points to a successful Dáil run in future. Sheila Garrity (IND) is on 3% and while that’s another likely source of left-wing transfers, doesn’t place her as relevant in the running.
Galway West Transfer Analysis
As you can probably tell from reading the previous section, the way transfers go, and also the order of eliminations, is going to be really important in a disparate field with three potentially competitive blocs. As noted in the Dublin section, the aggregate 2nd preference figures from the poll aren’t particularly helpful without information about who they are coming from as well as who they are going to. This is not the easiest to explain, but I’ll give it a go below.
Probably the easiest way to start is looking at which bloc is in third place when only three candidates remain. This is under two assumptions, firstly that the top three positions will be one from each bloc, and secondly that all three will be relatively close. This is, based on the poll, going to be FG for the government and II for the right, with the left less clear-cut. The poll and historic transfer data indicates that this top three will be the case, but there’s a lot of gaps there (again, we have bascially no information on how Connolly and Grealish voters transfer), so, as ever, bear that in mind.
First, the scenario where the top two are from the government and the right with the left in third place. This is generally speaking a scenario that favours the government, owing primarily to the toxicity of Independent Ireland to left-wing transfers. Past transfer data indicates that very few Labour, SD or PBP voters transfer to II, and Green voters are even less likely to do so. Less significantly, but still notably, Labour and Green transfers in 2024 were relatively FG-friendly compared to other right-wing parties, though certainly less so than they were in the past.
Some might expect SF transfers to lean a little more towards II, and while certainly plausible, there is very little clear data to go off here. Regardless, on the numbers we do have, any SF affinity towards II would be outweighed by the combined Labour/SD/Green vote, and in such a scenario, the probabilities would favour Fine Gael.
Next let’s look at what happens if the left and the government are in a relatively close top two with the right coming in third. This scenario also mostly likely favours Fine Gael, although there is more uncertainty here given II’s relative newness and lack of information around their transfers. However, it is worth noting from the scant data we do have, that II voters are more likely to transfer to Sinn Féin than to other left-wing parties. That does open the possibility that if the lead left-wing part is SF, they may be in a stronger position than others in this scenario.
There are two further nuances to consider in this scenario. II have made much of being an anti-establishment, anti-government voice. If that does reflect in their transfers more than it historically did, it could mean a more left-friendly sample than expected – votes transferring, essentially, to keep the government candidates out. However, on the other hand, if II are drawing a lot of support from former FF voters (and the numbers suggest this to be the case, although it is not definitive), their transfers could be more government-friendly than expected. These are speculative of course, but we don’t have a very strong idea of what these transfers will look like, so again the potential for multiple outcomes must be emphasised.
Finally, what about a scenario where it comes down to the right versus the left, with the lead government candidate being the last out? This scenario is heavily contingent on who the lead left candidate is. If the poll is correct and and it’s Labour, they would have a small edge; although their affinity is diminished from where it historically was, Labour are still the left-wing party that attracts the most FG transfers. Caution is still needed here – we have very little data on how FG transfers go between Labour and II. What little we do have plus more general transfer data would imply they would be favoured to take a bigger share than II, but it’s not very clear-cut.
Conversely, if it’s Sinn Féin leading for the left, II should be favoured to win. FG voters don’t often transfer to SF, and while again caution is needed on the lack of examples of a direct choice, this should on paper favour II. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of non-transferable votes in this scenario either. As for if it’s the SDs, it’s murkier; they tend to get more FG transfers than SF but less than Labour on aggregate. Generally, Fine Gael voters don’t like transferring to any of SF, II or the SDs, and it rarely happens that these are their final choices, so we are in uncharted territory in this scenario.
Galway West Projection
I don’t know. I hope the above explains why I really don’t have a definitive answer here. There are too many small margins, and too many gaps in the historical data to make a call. I think the three blocs have a roughly equal chance at this stage, and the order of eliminations, as well as who is the lead left candidate, is so critical. I’ve modelled this multiple times with small variations in transfer rate and it can lead to different outcomes. And even a deviation of a point or two from the poll in the actual FPV results could change the outcome.
I will however, offer one thing. If the FPV exactly matches the poll, and if the transfers match up accordingly, Labour’s Helen Ogbu would win. I want to be very clear I’m not saying this will be the case or is the most likely outcome, but I think it would be remiss not to mention it. But overall there are simply too many variables here to make a confident call from the data between the three blocs.
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Just a quick reminder that I recorded a podcast on these polls with the Tortoise Shack, which you can listen to here.
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Irish Election Projections 