Sinn Féin is clearly putting a major effort into getting Mary Lou McDonald’s vote out for Janice Boylan in the Dublin Central byelection campaign.
- Full poll results here.
No wonder – failure to win the seat in her backyard would be a serious blot on McDonald’s copybook and would no doubt prompt a reprise of recent speculation about the future of her leadership. McDonald is a formidable campaigner – but her electoral record is chequered, and ultimately – as Keir Starmer is finding out – leaders stand or fall on their success in elections. It’s one of the factors that makes this an unusually high-stakes byelection campaign.
And the Sinn Féin effort on the ground is producing results. Boylan leads the pack in our latest poll with 21 per cent, giving her a three-point lead in advance of the Social Democrats candidate Daniel Ennis, on 18 per cent.
Those two are out in front, followed by Gerry Hutch, the veteran criminal, who is on 14 per cent. It’s an impressive showing by Hutch, but it’s hard to see a route to the seat for him unless he gets a much bigger first preference vote. He will benefit significantly from transfers from the anti-migration Independent candidate Malachy Steenson, but after that it’s hard to see where he will get votes.
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This contest might set Hutch up for the next election, though that’s not due until 2029, but on the basis of these numbers, he is still a distance away from a Dáil seat.
Ennis, by contrast, is in a very strong position to pick up transfers. When voters are asked to whom they will give their second preference, he leads with 15 per cent, in advance of the Greens’ Janet Horner (who performs well in the poll) on 14 per cent. Boylan is a way behind, on 10 per cent.
Ennis, the poll suggests, is set to get strong transfers from Horner, the Fine Gael candidate Ray McAdam, People Before Profit’s Eoghan Ó Ceannabhain and Labour’s Ruth O’Dea. If that pattern is borne out on election day, it will put him in a very strong position as the candidates of the left and the centre are eliminated.
Boylan looks to be in a good position to get Hutch transfers. But on the basis of today’s numbers, there is unlikely to be enough of them.
It’s worth entering three caveats to all this crystal ball-gazing. One is that the margin of error is a hefty 4 per cent – considerably larger than the equivalent in national opinion polls. The second is that turnout is usually lower for a byelection than for a general election, and Dublin Central is a very low turnout constituency anyway, with just over 52 per cent at the last election. And in a low turnout election, a determined get-out-the-vote effort – such as will be mounted by Sinn Féin – is a big advantage. And thirdly, many voters only make up their minds in the final days of a campaign.
So the picture described above could change by polling day. As of now though, it’s advantage to the Social Democrats.
