Wexford

Profile

Province: Rest of Leinster

Seats: 4 (-1 from redraw)

Current TDs: 1 SF, 1 FF, 1 FG, 1 LAB, 1 IND

Projection: 1 SF, 1 FF, 1 LAB, 1 IND

Analysis

October 2024

As mentioned elsewhere, this has been a decent period for Labour’s polling, so it shouldn’t be too surprising to see Wexford as a place showing them holding. Cllr George Lawlor is not Brendan Howlin, but he is tremendously popular in Wexford town in his own right, and the northern end of the constituency being hived off has certainly boosted Labour’s chances here.

I’m not sure what Fine Gael are doing running two candidates – they’ll need polling improvements for this not to backfire. There could absolutely be something in the local dynamics that I am completely missing that makes this make sense, but from an outside view, I’m getting shades of Waterford 2020 from this decision.

January 2024

If I wanted to cherry-pick something that would support the narrative around Sinn Féin losing ground to anti-migrant independents, this would be the constituency I’d focus on. As they trend in opposite directions, the model now very slightly favours anti-migrant Independent TD Verona Murphy holding her seat instead of losing it to second Sinn Féin candidate. Murphy came seventh in FPV in a five-seater in 2020, and got enough transfers to push her into the third seat; the model sees something similar happening in the new four-seater, which has retained most of her strongest areas.

There are still a lot of questions here since the redraw and Labour’s Brendan Howlin announcing his retirement, but the new boundaries do favour Murphy, and she’s poised to take advantage if SF and Labour struggle, though it should be noted that SF’s vote management could turn out better than the historical data used in the model suggests. It’s also worth noting that Fine Gael’s numbers here do not look great, but that is a lot to do with where their candidates in 2020 were based and how the redraw affects them, a different candidate may have a very different outcome. And finally, the model assumes Independent Cllr Ger Carty runs again, until proven otherwise. Any or all of those changing could have significant impact.

October 2023

I can’t remember the last time I had a double change in one round of projections, but here we are – Wexford swinging to the mainstream and away from Labour and Verona Murphy (IND). Independents have had a few weak polls in Leinster recently, which explains Murphy’s decline. Labour have also dropped a good bit as well; combining that with Brendan Howlin’s planned retirement puts them in a really difficult situation.

Neither are out of it by any means, and of course suggesting what may or may not happen with unknown second SF candidates does leave a significant margin for error. This constituency could be really competitive, probably more so than the other two involved in the Wexford/Wicklow redraw.

August 2023 (redraw)

Wexford loses the northern end of the constituency to the new Wicklow-Wexford constituency and drops from five seats to four. This is good news for some incumbents but poses tremendous challenges to others, as all none of them are based in the new area.

Firstly, the winners – this puts Brendan Howlin (LAB) in an extremely strong position. His seat had looked insecure beforehand but this removes part of the constituency that is much less supportive of him; he should have zero problems now. Similarly, Independent Verona Murphy gets a huge boost as she was very weak in North Wicklow. The model had her losing her seat under the old boundaries, now it favours her to keep hold of it.

For the other three, things are less simple. Johnny Mythen (SF), Paul Kehoe (FG) and James Browne (FF) are all based in Enniscorthy and lose large parts of their hinterland with the redraw. Mythen will be fine, as his votes were fairly evenly distributed geographically. Sinn Féin would have been hoping to add as second seat here, that seat now likely moves to the new constituency. Browne should be fine too, as Fianna Fáil should still be able to get around a quota here. However, in 2020 they ran a bizarre, doomed four-candidate strategy so it’s hard to tell how those votes will compress into one or two candidates.

Kehoe, on the other hand, is in serious trouble. Murphy really hurt FG in south Wexford last time round, and there’s no reason to assume she won’t do the same again; it’s more likely that the Fine Gael seat moves to Wicklow-Wexford. Kehoe could try to follow it, but ex-TD Michael D’Arcy would almost certainly be a stronger candidate here. Overall then, Fine Gael are poised to suffer no net loss – but a change of personnel.

July 2022

Wexford swings back to Labour again this month, with B&A showing them doing well in Leinster – something that has happened before but was in decline for a long time. There’s not much to add here that wasn’t covered last month, as all of the prior caveats still apply, and a lot here will come down to how many candidates parties feel comfortable running.

June 2022

Labour’s relatively static overall numbers are masking a significant downward shift in Rest of Leinster, offsetting it with increases in Dublin. If this polling reconfiguration holds true, all of their seats outside of the capital suddenly look very vulnerable. While veteran Brendan Howlin is the most likely to hold on, assuming he runs again, he’s still in an uncomfortable position. Right now the polling puts him behind a second FF candidate, albeit only very slightly.

As has been mentioned a few times, his personal vote is likely to be a saving grace and allow him to beat the projections, and it’s also worth noting that he did outperform the Labour trend in 2020 and 2016. It’s possible that he has a higher floor, but trying to definitively determine this isn’t possible. Either way this is a highly competitive constituency that could come down to fine margins, whatever way it goes.

September 2021

Wexford has probably seen the biggest changes of any constituency as a result of the Labour recovery. Not only is Brendan Howlin favoured by the model to hold his seat for the first time, he’s favoured to do so relatively comfortably.

This is something that felt like a huge miss in the model that I couldn’t find the root cause of, but it seems the polling has taken care of it for me. Howlin is probably the most consistently popular Labour TD in the Dáil when it comes to local support, and it’s reflected here that he’s poised to do the best from the changes in polling.

Elsewhere, SF, FF and FG are all comfortably going to take one seat, with the final seat a battle between second candidates from those three parties – which Sinn Féin are currently favoured to win.

January 2021

SF and FG should take two seats here without too much bother. IND Verona “Not a Racist” Murphy is going to struggle with Independent support down and Fine Gael support up, and consequently, FG should regain the seat won by their former candidate. Johnny Mythen’s vote should be sufficient to bring in an SF running mate.

The final seat is less clear. Brendan Howlin has been in the Dáil since 1987 and has dominated the vote around Wexford town in spite of tough polling environments for Labour before. James Browne would have done better in 2020 if Fianna Fáil hadn’t made the absolutely incomprehensible decision to run four candidates, which probably cost them a second seat. Currently in a one on one, the model gives Browne the edge, but caution should be exercised here – Howlin has massively outperformed his party before, and FF could very easily mess up their candidate strategy. The current call is for FF, but this is far from a sure thing.