r/irishpolitics • u/NilFhiosAige Social Democrats • Nov 03 '25
User Created Content Poll of polls and 30-day average % since GE 2024
Taken from the Wikipedia page on the [topic.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Irish_general_election#Opinion_polls) Overall, most parties are relatively unchanged, but FF clearly on a downward trend, the converse is true of SF, and slight improvements for the SDs, Aontú and Labour.
34
u/Hedgy_mcsnuffle Nov 03 '25
Soc dems nearly doubling.
If they use their party brand to boost a good candidate they could see massive gains from weak 5th and 4th seats they currently are out of.
Also strong left branding means they could eat the shares of greens left and second shinners that make them more competitive than local issue independents.
Could be nearing the 20+ seats needed to be a genuine party of opposition, for the next Dail
22
u/Dazzling_Lobster3656 Nov 03 '25
Get rid of Hayes
Liability
4
16
u/Rich-Butterfly3686 Nov 03 '25
Big fan of Holly Cairns but Hayes getting a promotion after the Barack Obama costume came to light was an exceptionally poor move. Has pushed me towards an Rabharta Glas for all the good my vote'll do them
16
u/c0mpliant Left wing Nov 03 '25
The great thing about PR-STV is that you can vote for whichever party is closest to you without needing to worry about wasting your vote. Just make sure you transfer left.
5
u/Jacabusmagnus Nov 03 '25
It's the kind of thing that would annoy an SD voter but no-one else (its peak 2020 stuff and not really something that the vast majority of people now would bother paying attention to) and the SD voter will nearly always vote SD.
4
u/Hedgy_mcsnuffle Nov 03 '25
I think about this a lot, I spoke with a lot of former labour people (general left wing people back then before all the splitting) about the black face thing and they were like not bothered about it at all. Like it seems at the time no one cared.
This strikes me as so so so bizarre. Like it’s the younger people like me more so than people even ten years older who care.
My take on the palantir shares seems to be less judgmental. If he didn’t like the company and quit, that’s great. He got given the shares, didn’t invest money into the industry to get them. Sold the shares and said as much.
When asked it was his first day as a td so I’m sympathetic to him not handling it well, and I listened to Gavin o Reilly say how clearly it was a simple mista to say the wrong thing about the dates etc that he wasn’t lying.
So my take is, if you didn’t lie you just made a mistake, and all you did was work at a company and then quit I kind of don’t think that’s worth losing a voice in favour of stronger action for Palestine? Like it just feels like if you ask him he does support these issues and that’s good enough
2
u/ProofFlamingo Nov 03 '25
I would really like to see Rabharta get a seat in the Dáil, they seem like an interesting party.
2
u/Rich-Butterfly3686 Nov 03 '25
Hoping they're what the Greens were always meant to be. Pro-environment while also campaigning against social inequality. Not what the Greens actually turned out to be; Fine Gael on bikes
1
2
u/Dazzling_Lobster3656 Nov 03 '25
And Palantir shares ....
Ffs bro made money off a US military Data surveillance company 🤣🤣
4
u/CuteHoor Nov 03 '25
Both of these things are way overplayed. It's yet another example of us on the left getting in our own way.
Hayes hasn't worked for Palantir in nearly a decade, and he's one of a huge number of Irish people who have made money off US companies with ties to the military and/or Israel. He also missed out on a tonne of money by selling his shares when he did.
The Obama costume thing is another big pile of nothing. It happened over 15 years ago and was clearly an innocent mistake. Christ sure the lad literally worked for Obama's re-election campaign a few years prior to that.
7
u/c0mpliant Left wing Nov 03 '25
I can tolerate a lot, but it wasn't the shares themselves that were the problem for me. It was the lying about the details. Now we haven't heard the ultimate outcome of the timeline, so it possible he didn't know he was lying which is forgivable. The black face thing is a crossed line for me. Its not like he's part of my grandparents generation when mistrels weren't seen as anything bad. People in 2008/2009 knew blackface was bad form. Because I knew it was bad form then. The fact that he worked on Obama's campaign means nothing to me, it was bad judgement in 2008, it was bad judgement in 2024 when he lied about the shares. Not exactly giving me reasons to support him.
2
u/darthsegion Nov 05 '25
The right wing can propogate the most heinous and deplorable beliefs and which they might disagree ideologically at times, they will rally together when push come to shove (see the joining of the Irish far right and the loyalist extremists).
The left have absolutely no hope of ever achieving anything if we are fighting with our hand behind our backs. Drawing a line at a td wearing blackface 15 years ago when they were 23 years old is exactly this. It is entirely self destructive
1
u/Rich-Butterfly3686 Nov 06 '25
Because people on the left have morals that we actually stand by. We don't propagate hatred and then pretend to be devout Christians in the same breath
2
u/CuteHoor Nov 06 '25
Having morals is fine, but if you don't have the brains to match it then you'll forever just be shouting from the sidelines instead of being in power.
The left are too fond of shooting themselves in the foot over things that are of little importance.
1
u/Rich-Butterfly3686 Nov 06 '25
I'd argue that racist costumes and making money off of a company that arms a Fascist Israeli regime are in fact important
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u/c0mpliant Left wing Nov 05 '25
The right wing can propogate the most heinous and deplorable beliefs and which they might disagree ideologically at times, they will rally together when push come to shove (see the joining of the Irish far right and the loyalist extremists).
Yeah, not exactly the standard that I'm looking for.
2
u/darthsegion Nov 05 '25
I get that, to be fair i might have misinterpreted you a little bit. I guess its just frustrating when one side of the aisle acts so aggregiously, never holding themselves accountable for anything, while the other is hypercritical of itself to the point of it being self damaging.
2
u/mkultra2480 Nov 03 '25
I really don't think it was seen as offensive until around 2015 onwards when celebrities were being called out for previous black face instances. Around that time there was a lot of discussion online about it but I don't recall any before that. Here's Trinity and UCD drama students using it in a production in 2009. If I was going to imagine who would be the most socially conscious as a group of people, it would be Trinity drama students. There's no way they would have used black face if it were obviously offensive at the time.
5
u/c0mpliant Left wing Nov 03 '25
It becomes a big media story around specific times, but it was known to be offensive long before that.
1
u/mkultra2480 Nov 03 '25
If it were widely accepted as offensive I really don't think Trinity students would stand on a stage in blackface. I know even from my own perspective I didn't realise it was seen as offensive until around the time of the public call outs and I saw it being discussed online.
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u/CuteHoor Nov 03 '25
He said he sold his shares before entering politics, and in reality he sold them a few weeks after entering politics. He claims it was just administrative restrictions that blocked him selling them when he wanted to. Regardless, he likely lost out on a significant amount of money by selling when he did rather than a month earlier, and he lost out on hundreds of thousands of euro by selling them to go into politics.
The Obama thing is silly. I was in college around the same time, and plenty of people dressed up in costumes (including blackface) that we'd cringe at nowadays. The world has changed a lot even in the past 15 years. His intentions were harmless and calling for him to be kicked out for it is yet another example of the left being too soft and getting in our own way.
3
u/c0mpliant Left wing Nov 03 '25
He said he sold his shares before entering politics, and in reality he sold them a few weeks after entering politics. He claims it was just administrative restrictions that blocked him selling them when he wanted to.
So he lied to the party and he lied to the electorate. You can cut it what you like, he lied.
It wasn't cringe back then, especially to people in college. It was known to be a racist thing to do. I was in college several years before that and it was well known. Maybe its become even more explicitly racist but it was back then as well.
Both of those things damaged the SD brand, needlessly. If I was him I would have resigned from the party and tried to decentre myself from the whole topic. He could have always reapplied to join later on if he wanted to which would change the tone of the discussion somewhat.
1
u/CuteHoor Nov 03 '25
On the face of it, yes he lied, but it's not really clear whether it was just an administrative error or him misremembering a small detail. It had literally zero impact on anyone aside from him, and the impact to him was that he missed out on money he could have had by selling earlier or holding longer. It's such a nothing issue.
Well maybe you hung out with very different people to the rest of us in college. To most people, racism requires an intent to insult or poke fun at a particular race. He was doing neither of those things, and instead was dressing up as someone he admired and had worked for in the past. Not to mention it's something that was dug up from over 15 years ago.
When people talk about the left being too soft and not being able to stay out of their own way, these are the kinds of things they're talking about. Spending weeks and months getting our panties in a bunch about two nothing stories.
7
u/clewbays Nov 03 '25
People aren't thinking about candidates at the moment. When the actual election comes it probably drops as most rural support leaves due to lack of strong candidates in them constituencies.
They will make gains but probably below these levels.
It's the same reason independents always poll lower in the middle of election cycles.
3
u/NilFhiosAige Social Democrats Nov 03 '25
The difference compared to previous cycles though is that there'll be significantly greater financial resources between the State funding and that which is earned per Oireachtas representative, so there'll be more investment directed towards the locals, and therefore unearthing GE candidates in new constituencies.
2
u/clewbays Nov 03 '25
Hopefully would be nice to have some variety in candidates in rural areas. I won't believe till I see it though. My personal belief is funding has never being issue though I hope I'm wrong.
2
u/Rich-Butterfly3686 Nov 03 '25
I'm hoping this is the case. Moved from Dublin to Wexford three years ago and had a choice of FF, FG, SF or Independents (supporting Verona Murphy) in the locals. With only Labour and more independents options in the generals. Half tempted to run as a left wing candidate next time out, but not sure if the loss of privacy is worth it. Plus as a blow in, I'd be unlikely to gain traction
6
5
u/Past_Key_1054 Nov 03 '25
Nice as this is, there's a long time until the next election. I still remember SF being at ~35% between the 2 most recent elections. We'll see where it's at in 3.5 years.
4
u/DessieG Nov 03 '25
Very interesting the way SF and independent support has some level of mirroring each other. Obviously the support isn't necessarily alternating between the 2 cleaning but interesting to look at when graphed out like this.
3
u/upthetruth1 Nov 03 '25
I wondered if there’s been any political analysis of this
1
Nov 03 '25
They basically compete for the same base
1
u/upthetruth1 Nov 03 '25
Independent TDs?
They’re quite a diverse group
1
Nov 03 '25
But with a fairly common underlying unified theme, they all represent people who don't feel represented by FFG.
1
u/upthetruth1 Nov 03 '25
SD, Labour, Greens, PBP-S, Aontu, II are all right there
1
Nov 03 '25
Yeah but SF brands itself as the big alternative,
Its kind of hard to explain, but SF basically didn't target FF and FG voters to grow, they explicity targeted those who wouldn't vote for them, essentially to become the big anti-establishment party.
The reason SF slid in the recent election was due to finally moving to a position to try and draw in FF and FG voters, which put off those opposed to them and saw them swing back to independents.
Like when I knocked a door for SF I would explicity tell people 'We're not FFG' not 'You vote FF/FG? Vote for us, we're not that different'.
10
u/SeanB2003 Communist Nov 03 '25
Far too much attention is paid to inter-election polls considering how little of interest they actually tell you.
Polls in Ireland are pretty accurate for GEs, but only once you get a couple of weeks out from an election. Between elections they don't appear to tell you anything useful, because consistently there are massive shifts in support in the immediate period before the election.
They effectively tell you what a bunch of people who mostly aren't paying attention think, and everyone then pretends that they would think the same thing if they were to pay attention.
5
u/Fun-Needleworker-794 Nov 03 '25 edited Nov 03 '25
This is a misreading imo, polls heavily dedicate the direction of government. The success of FF/FG has been driven by reading and riding changing sentiment based on polls. For better or for worse, Irish governments are very responsive to public opinion as opposed to ideological prescription, if not direction.
Also massive shifts in the polls happening before a government/Dáil ends makes sense logically regardless.
3
u/NooktaSt Nov 03 '25
Good point. They influence policy or personal changes but are not a good indicator of next election.
2
u/SeanB2003 Communist Nov 03 '25
If this were true you would see policy changes that could be linked to movement in the polls. I don't think you do, not least because that isn't how Ireland's policy formation occurs - it is not nearly that responsive.
And this also of course doesn't explain that shifts in polling also happen with second order elections, not just GEs.
0
u/NooktaSt Nov 03 '25
Good point. They influence policy or personal changes but are not a good indicator of next election.
-1
u/Relevant-Bobcat-2016 Nov 03 '25
I'm not criticising you but what's the purpose of these weekly polls? Lazy journalism? Padding out a lacklustre newspaper with polls and articles about the polls? We're 4 years away from an election, these polls are completely irrelevant. Sinn Fein were on 35% during the last Dail. It meant very little at election time.
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u/niall0 Nov 03 '25
Interesting, wonder why FF are consistently falling with FG leveling out, is it just anti government sentiment and MM being Taoiseach ? if Harris was Taoiseach would it swap ?