For the first time ever, three parties are all fighting it out to be Ireland’s most popular party according to the official Exit Poll for General Election 2020.
The Ipsos MRBI Exit Poll for TG4, RTÉ, The Irish Times and UCD shows Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin all on 22% of first preference votes.
FF 22%
FG 22%
SF 22%
GP 8%
LAB 5%
SD 3%
SPBP 3%
Aon 2%
Others P 2%
IND 11%
What will separate them once the first preference votes are counted? And who will best convert their vote into seats?
All three parties have had upward swings and wobbles during this campaign, but comparing to the most recent Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll last weekend, Fine Gael could arguably be happier than the others with that poll having put them in third place and in danger of being separated from the other two.
Fianna Fáil have had a steady campaign in terms of how they’ve performed in national opinion polls, and this result is consistent with how they’ve been performing.
Several commentators in recent days have placed them as the best out of the three to gain the extra last seats in constituencies, will they be right?
Sinn Féin will have mixed feelings; up substantially from the 2016 General Election when they got 14% first preferences and 23 seats, and also from only last year when they had very poor Local Election Results. However with only 42 candidates in 38 constituencies, they cannot challenge the other two in terms of the final number of seats won, and on the findings of this Exit Poll cannot achieve their goal of leading a left-wing coalition.
In terms of the other parties, the Green Party have also had a steady campaign and have kept their momentum from last year’s Local & European Elections. They have 8% of first preference vote according to the Exit Poll, significantly higher than the 2.7% they achieved in the 2016 General Election.
Labour are once again facing a decrease in their first preference vote according to the Exit Poll, achieving 5% of first preferences compared to the 6.6% achieved in the last General Election.
Independents have polled at 11% and as always will have a say in the final shake-up.
The other parties, notably The Social Democrats and Solidarity People Before Profit stand at 3% and 3% respectively, while Aontú’s first General Election campaign will get them 1.8% according to the Exit Poll.
The poll was conducted today at 250 count centres across the country. Over 5,376 people were interviewed and the margin of error is +/-1.3%
