Parties striving to get strategies pitch perfect
But knowing what needs to be done and actually succeeding in getting it done are two completely separate things.
The latest Sunday Business Post-Red opinion poll confirms the direction in which this campaign has gone. Fine Gael has all the momentum and is on 39%.
Labour, which once looked capable of mounting a serious challenge to Fine Gael, has had a bad campaign thus far, and has fallen another three points within a week to just 17%.
Fianna Fáil is on 16%, which might be taken as an indication — but by no means a guarantee — that new leader Micheál Martin has at least stopped the bleeding.
Sinn Féin is on 12%, the Greens are on 2%, and Independents and others are on 14%.
(A separate Irish Times-IPSOS MRBI poll last night showed very similar results).
The media is often accused of having an obsession with polls but one of the reasons they get so much coverage is that the parties themselves are obsessed by them.
The parties will closely scrutinise the figures in the latest poll — just as they have done with their own internal polls — and the resulting analyses will have some bearing on what they do in the coming days.
In Fine Gael’s case, for instance, it is a case of maintaining the momentum and making no major mistakes. It is also about vote management, a party strategist said yesterday. On 39%, the party will have no problem getting its preferred candidate in the bulk of the 43 constituencies elected. But getting the second candidate elected in a lot of those constituencies will take some work.
To pick a random example, take Dublin North Central. It seems likely that Richard Bruton will top the poll in this three-seater constituency. But to get his running mate Naoise Ó Muirí any chance against sitting Independent TD Finian McGrath and well-regarded Labour candidate Aodhán O’Riordáin, Mr Bruton will have to encourage a significant slice of his supporters to give their No1 vote to Mr Ó Muirí and their No2 to him. That takes confidence and discipline, and Fine Gael HQ will be leaning on candidates this week to ensure careful vote management.
For Labour, the internal mutterings about what went wrong have probably already started, but the party will know the formal inquest will have to wait until after polling day. Labour was on 27% in the Red C polling series in November, meaning it has fallen 10 points in a relatively short time-frame. It is now in a desperate race to try and narrow the gap with Fine Gael by polling day. It’s a massively tall order, but the party will plug away this week with its warnings about the dangers of a single-party government, according to a strategist.
Party leader Eamon Gilmore will seek to drive home the message that “fair and balanced government” — ie, balanced by Labour — is required in order to protect family budgets.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin made clear his strategy last night — an appeal to the hearts and minds of the party base, the traditional Fianna Fáil supporters, to keep the faith and stay loyal to the party on polling day.
He spoke of the good things Fianna Fáil had done; free second-level education in the 1960s, for example and said he would seek to reinvent and rebuild the party while staying loyal to its traditions.
This pitch to the base, if successful, could make all the difference in constituency dogfights.
The truth about the national polls is, of course, they paint only the national picture. Yes, Fine Gael is flying; yes, Labour is struggling; yes, Fianna Fáil is on the floor; yes, Sinn Féin looks like making great leaps; yes, the Greens look like being obliterated; yes, Independents look like having a great election; and yes, the parties use the national polls to help them shape their broad message.
But they are just as obsessed by constituency polls because if one goes through constituencies on a one-by-one basis, it can paint a somewhat different picture.
Sinn Féin, for example, could take 20 seats based on the national poll findings, but because some of its candidates are not well known in their constituencies, a dozen or so seats may be a more realistic target.
Similarly, a strong candidate with a good track record of local work can overcome his or her party’s unpopularity and retain or win a seat. So Willie O’Dea, for example, will by dint of his track record almost certainly overcome Fianna Fáil’s national ratings to take a seat in Limerick City.
So the base can make a difference in Fianna Fáil’s case, which is why Mr Martin is pitching to it. But whether they’ll respond, and whether the final days of campaigning make a significant difference to the outcome of this election, remains to be seen.
