My thoughts… with about one week until the start of #GE2024 campaign

My latest MOONEY ON POLITICS podcast is based on the following text

Over the past few days, I’ve seen several political pundits offering their Irish election forecasts – offering a range of possible seat totals.

God bless their courage.

Until the campaign gets underway, I think it is wiser to avoid seat predictions, especially ones informed by polling. My main reason for this is that I think that the outcome of election will be heavily influenced by the campaign itself.

Campaigns matter… and this time around I believe the truth of this sound political adage will be very evident.

This is part due to the fact that this is will be a winter election. Though voters do like to be canvassed and the old motto that a vote worth getting is worth asking for still holds true voters might not be as inclined to engage with canvassers at their doors, especially during a cold Thursday evening.

A lot of voters will watch this campaign played out in the media…. In the newspapers, national and local, and on various TV and radio debates – both national and local, plus on social media platforms.

The national party campaigns will matter… as will the capacity of leading political figures to respond to and address the unpredictables.

This election could well hinge on how leader A or X responds to something or to some glaring hole or gap being found in some party’s manifesto.

Yes, it is possible, perhaps to anticipate – with around 85-90% accuracy how 131 of the 174 seats (spread across 43 constituencies) will go. But it is those final seats in those 43 constituencies that will be pivotal in shaping the next Dáil and the next government. 

That said there are a few things we can still state today… about one month ahead of polling…  with a reasonable degree of certainty:

The first is that both Fianna Fáil (FF) and Sinn Féin are entering this election with polling numbers below their 2020 results.

The second is that Fine Gael and Independents go into this campaign with polling numbers showing each ahead of its 2020 results.

My source for this assessment is the excellent www.pollingindicator.com, a project maintained by Stefan Müller.

So, when the leader of Fianna Fáil, claims that he expects his party to be in the ‘40s,’ it’s not that bold a claim. It may be framed to sound big… but in a Dáil with 14 extra seats, it is conservative… at best.

If Fianna Fáil were to snag just 20% of the 14 extra seats, it could expect to get to 41 seats. That’s in the 40s… though still 3 seats below what it got in 2016… in a smaller Dáil.

The party could not hold that vote, and seat share, from opposition in 2020, now thinks it do that, and more, from government in 2024.

I would not be hopeful… especially when the campaign will matter and the folks behind the 2024 FF campaign were the authors of the 2020 one! As Frank Cluskey famously remarked back in the 1980s… there’s confidence for ya.

All of this assumes that Martin’s party holds all its existing 38 seats. That is definitely a tall order, especially with his trusted government partner already openly targeting at least three Fianna Fáil seats in Dublin alone.

Not that I think the Blueshirts will succeed in these ambitions. If anything, the blues bullishness has possibly done more to secure those Dublin seats for Fianna Fáil than FF HQ could ever have imagined.

But Fianna Fail has problems… and the biggest one it has is that it has yet to come to grips with its relationship with Fine Gael.

The DCU political scientist and pundit Eoin O’Malley summed it up succinctly in a Sunday Indo article a few weeks ago.

… except for the Greens, it is not clear what the parties (in the current government) stand for. It is unclear to voters what principles distinguish Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

If they continue to govern together, why do they go to the electorate apart? That should mean that one will be seen as unnecessary and eventually die out.

At the moment that would be Fianna Fáil, which should worry devotees of the party of De Valera.

I may quibble with Eoin about the last part, but his core point is correct. This is Fianna Fáil’s great dilemma. But it is one that is entirely of its own making, thanks to its leader’s two fateful and mistaken unilateral decisions.

The first was to extend confidence and supply in 2018 and the second was to pivot from its GE2020 message of throw the buggers out, to “lets join them in office” within an hour of the tallies emerging at the Cork city hall count centre.

We got a glimpse into how Martin’s Fianna Fáil plans to address this conundrum courtesy of Martin’s interview with the Irish Mail on Sunday’s John Lee.

TL;DR Martin is going to try to have it both ways. His pitch is to return Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to power while simultaneously saying that Fine Gael cannot be trusted alone on crime (which it clearly cannot) or on housing.

To be fair to Martin’s defenders… and I am told such exotic creatures do exist… can legitimately point to his erstwhile partners in office being the first to go on the attack. Fine Gael sources have been spinning against Martin and Fianna Fáil for months, if not years.

This brings me neatly to Fine Gael’s situation.

They are looking for an fourth term. It is a big ask on two fronts.

• Their vote share has been falling steadily since 2011 and were returned to office twice (2016 and 2020) despite voters turning against them.
• Over half of their existing team not seeking re-election.

Notable figures such as David Stanton, Richard Bruton, Michael Ring, Fergus O’Dowd, and Heather Humphreys will be missed… electorally.

These individuals had the ability to pull support from beyond their own partisan hinterland. The departure of each leaves several packets of votes available to others.

Despite these challenges, Fine Gael appears confident – in my opinion way over-confident – about its ability to not just retain those seats, but to also increase its seat total.

Most Fine Gael-ers believe that their new leader, Simon Harris, could be a game-changer.

Over recent weeks, he has been visibly active – shaking hands and engaging with constituents across the country, like a second-rate Bertie Ahern tribute act.

A Greystones Bjorn Again

Can energetic campaigning zeal turn the tide in Fine Gael’s favour?

I have grave questions on how effective this strategy will be.

The hurdle remains sizable.

Harris does messaging well. He does social media well… though his posts are self-focused and have the depth and substance of a Maybelline advert.

Can a party so long in power really pass itself off as the freshest thing on the menu because it says it has a new energy?

If it does pull off this trick, then it is largely down to the lack of any coherent alternative government.

This brings us to the main opposition party: Sinn Féin

It enters this election in a near precarious position. Its polling benchmarks of the past 6 – 9 months indicate a drastic decline from the soaring figures or just over a year ago.

As bad as the headline figures in last week’s Red C poll looked, the killer finding was that 53% of voters do not see Sinn Féin  as ready for government, this includes one third of those voters who had previously said they could vote Sinn Féin now saying, no… Sinn Féin is not fit for office.

This is compounded by serious criticisms regarding their handling of recent controversies.

The Sinn Féin mantra that the recent controversies are essentially being pushed by a biased and partisan media may play well with the core Sinn Féin vote, but the core Sinn Féin  vote alone would not see the party retain the seats it won in 2020.

Sinn Féin has a big problem and its attempts to dismiss it have not worked.

It should have the issues that matter on its side. Voters are not happy with how the government is handling housing, the cost of living, crime and how public money is spent. They have a Taoiseach who is great at short and snappy messaging, just not on delivery.

As we see, the narrative surrounding this election is complex. Strategies will evolve, and much will depend on how each party navigates the upcoming weeks.

The dynamic interaction between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will potentially influence the electoral outcome…. And may push more voters to the opposition… beyond Sinn Féin.

With the government parties ready to do battle with each other, this could really open the door for the many non-Sinn Féin alternatives.

Labour, the Social Democrats, and plenty of independents ready to swoop in!

Labour and the Social Democrats could pick up on any further Sinn Féin slippage, particularly among those looking for real solutions to the housing and rental crisis… but the offering two rival left of centre alternatives makes that a less than coherent prospect.

So too might Aontú… it could pull off the unusual trick of gaining from both unhappy core Sinn Féin and unhappy old-school Fianna Fáil voters. Aontú could be a viable alternative for centrists who don’t want to vote independent… but can it do it in sufficient numbers to gain more than one extra seat?  

By the way, I believe the Green Party is being discounted too soon.

Yes, they will suffer some losses, smaller parties in a coalition often do take the hit. But… how many voters who backed the Greens in 2020 can say that they have been let down.

Yes, they did end up in Govt with both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, and that may have been a move too far for hardline leftish greens… but for the bulk of the Green’s more realnik supporters, the Greens have a strong record of achievement in government to point to.

It is not a record that appeals to me… but then I didn’t vote green in 2020 or in 2016. You cannot lose the support of those who never supported you. Projecting a Green wipeout is a mistake.

This leaves us with the independents and the Cerberus/Schrodinger’s cat that is Independent Ireland… the party that is and both isn’t a party, while be codependently independent.

Right now, this grouping looks like being the greatest beneficiary of whatever dissatisfaction there is with the main three parties.

The problem for Independent Ireland, and for many gene pool Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael independents, is that these groups are even more keen to get into bed with the two main government parties.

So, they cannot claim to be an alternative to the current government. A corrective perhaps, but in most cases, they’d be a local corrective at most. One that would be maybe 10-15% better at delivering some priming to the parish pump?

Which brings me to my final point: the candidates themselves.   

Fine Gael has some fresh faces coming in which is exciting. It does need a better mix of experience and energy. Fine Gael strategists are wisely trying to turn a negative: the lose of so many vote winning T.D.s into a potential positive, by portraying the party that has been in continual power since 2011 as being the newest thing on the menu.

It is a tough sell. Fine Gael is betting that middle ground voters will feel they have no other alternative (apart from Fianna Fáil) than to back a new-ish looking Fine Gael.  

The incoming Fine Gael parliamentary party, regardless of its eventual size will look fresher and maybe a tad new and younger. And that is a positive thing, though how many of that new intake will be of potential ministerial standard will take time to determine.

On the Fianna Fáil side, while it cannot hope for as big a parliamentary rethread as Fine Gael, it does look as if its parliamentary ranks will see a decent cohort of fresh talent this time around.

The possible election of new T.D.s such as Galway’s Albert Dolan, Meath’s Aisling Dempsey, Louth’s Alison Comyn, Dublin Mid west’s Shane Moynihan and perhaps Ryan O’Meara  in Tipperary North, will shake things up and give the incoming Fianna Fáil parliamentary party  a solid mix of experience and fresh thinking.

This brings us to election date. I reckon it will be November 29 – though this depends on the passage of the Finance Bill.

Frankly, the whole embroglio over the setting and announcement of the election date has been chaotic and unnecessarily irritating.

Do I think this will become an election issue itself? Probably not. Any concerns about that will dissipate in the first few days however it doesn’t set a great background as it does look as if the three-party leaders in government haven’t really gone into this unorganised way.

The megaphone diplomacy between Martin, Harris and O’Gorman of the last few months hasn’t done any of them credit.

It does look as if this is a government with internal problems in terms of in terms of cohesion, unity, and mutual trust.

I don’t think it’s big news to say that relations between Simon Harris and Micheal Martin are less than harmonious. These might come to the surface over the election, especially given Martin’s intense spikiness of late – including on last week’s Virgin Media TV The Group Chat.

I think it’s an indication that (assuming this government is returned in some shape, make or form) Martin and Harris are not likely to work well together in the future. This election will layer even move scars over an already marred carapace.

The one thing government needs at the top is cohesion. But how likely is that in a government dominated by the brittle personalities of these two party leaders.

But that’s just that’s a matter for another day and another podcast.

As we gear up for this campaign, I expect it’ll be a whirlwind. As Sun Tzu observed in The Art Of War: no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy

The campaign strategists within each party and grouping will have carefully choreographed the first steps in their own campaigns. After that all they can do is speculate and draft contingencies around how they would expect others to respond.

The great skill in campaigning is the ability to adapt and respond, in real time, to an evolving situation. Sticking with the plan, no matter what, is not a virtue.   

By week two of the campaign, we will see the key deciding issues bubble through, whether those are: childcare, housing, cost of living, crime, migration. It could be that the issue that dominates week two is not on this list… but I would bet that whatever that issue might be, it will be totemic of the rest.

So, where does that leave us? It feels a bit disheartening knowing how many options really just don’t resonate with voters. If I were in a constituency 50-60Km away and not personally connected to a candidate I might be looking at my ballot paper and thinking, “None of the above.” And I have voted Fianna Fáil 1, 2 and 3 at almost every election since I was first eligible to vote in 1981.

However, despite the infrequency of my commentaries of late… be assured I’ll be here sharing insights regularly from now until the first posters appear… legally!

I’m hoping to do nightly podcast episodes once the campaign kicks off to keep you all in the loop. So, search for: Mooney On Politics on your favourite podcast platform.