Second poll shows Fine Gael ahead by twice the margin of any other southern party…

Usual caveats and health warnings attach to Banda.ie’s poll for political preferences in today’s Sunday Times. It’s the youngest of all three polls and probably the most erratic. It was first to show a bounce for Sinn Fein and now shows a significant drop in sentiment for that party just days after the more established Irish Times poll showed a significant leap. What it does demonstrate is the party with most consistent support (despite some seriously dropped ball) is Fine …

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Cameron’s battle with the European beast makes EU less unpopular?

Much has been made of the veto bounce for David Cameron. You find it most dramatically in the ICM poll which filters rigourously for likelihood to vote (and already had the Tories in the lead). In fact the detail in some of the polls suggest that the Tory bounce has been in part a result of squeezing UKIP’s recent surge. And if you look at the patterns over the last few months on YouGov’s polling report, this bounce only just …

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Latest poll good news for the new opposition (and perhaps next government)?

No surprise that after a fairly punishing budget for the public sector (not least in education where targeted help for low achieving schools in inner city areas seeing substantial job cuts), that the government rating fell in yesterday’s Behaviours and Attitude poll by ten points to 26%. For the record, that’s the lowest rating for a government in its first year since polling began. The party ratings are no more encouraging for the government either: Fine Gael support is down …

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Irish Times Poll: It’s all about Higgins, Gallagher and McGuinness (and poor Gay Mitchell)…

Well that’s one of my Betfair punts in the waste basket, and the other one could yet cost me some serious cash. However, let’s remember for now that this is still only a gameshow! The Red C poll results are out later, but for now, this is the #Aras11 world according to Ipsos/MRB: Michael D Higgins 23 per cent (up five points); Seán Gallagher 20 per cent (up seven points); Martin McGuinness 19 per cent (not in last poll); Mary …

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vote early, check how it was counted often

Continuing on from a post on 1 November about “faith-based” e-voting. Some interesting ideas from David Bismark at TEDGlobal 2010 about e-voting that tries to simultaneously increases transparency and reduces fraud. One of the main objections to e-voting is that it’s difficult for each voter to know that her vote was recorded accurately and counted correctly, while she remains anonymous. In the system designed by David Bismark and his colleagues, each voter gets a takeaway slip that serves as a …

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Fine Gael retain lead in Red C poll

The latest SBP/RedC poll shows a surge for Labour although less than the Irish Times poll from a fortnight ago. Fine Gael retain a healthy lead and FF languishing on a steady 24%. David has the detail on politics.ie: FF 24% (NC) FG 33% (+3) LAB 27% (+5) Greens 2% (-3) http://pie.ly/cln4Le Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest …

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Labour tops Irish Times poll with 32%…

There is already a raging debate over at Politics.ie over the latest Irish Times IPSOS/MRBI Poll: …if there were a general election tomorrow, the adjusted figures for party support, compared with the previous Irish Times poll on January 20th last were: Fianna Fáil, 17 per cent (down five points); Fine Gael, 28 per cent (down four points); Labour, 32 per cent (up eight points); Sinn Féin, 9 per cent (up one point); Green Party, 3 per cent (no change); and …

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On that Newsletter “Slugger O’Toole” poll…

For those of you wondering why we got ‘scooped’ on our own poll, as reported on the Newsletter this morning, it’s because it’s not actually our poll. We had been talking to Lucid Talk about running a depth poll in two key constituencies, rather than an 18 constituency wide survey. Bill White, former chair of South Belfast Ulster Unionist Association, who owns LucidTalk, explains below the fold:

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Slugger reader predictions – latest

We’ve had 49 replies to our Prediction Competition so far*. Averaging the results, we’re collectively predicting a turnout of 61.8%, and the votes cast divide up as follows (rounded up to one decimal place): SF: 25.6% DUP: 23.5% UCUNF: 17.9% SDLP: 16.2% Alliance: 5.2% TUV: 7.3% Others: 4.2% What does this tell us? It isn’t polling evidence, and there’s no weighting (bookies have the benefit of knowing a bit about strength of sentiment because it’s hard-earned cash backing predictions). But …

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