Blog Posts
The RedC poll published on Sunday marks the 30th opinion poll on party support released in 2022. Despite mentions of “bounces”, “rebounds”, and “recoveries”, we observe very little change in aggregated party support this year. Sampling variation might drive most of these “changes”, which have usually been within the margin of error of ±3 percentage points. Research by Erik Gahner Larsen and Zoltán Fazekas shows that news reports frequently interpret deviations within the margin of error as substantive changes. The authors conclude that “a horserace coverage of polls about change can rest on a foundation of stability” (Larsen and Fazekas 2020: 115). Irish newspapers often do not seem to deviate from this pattern. However, and this is very encouraging, most news articles now explicitly mention the margin of error, sampling strategy, and weighting of respondents.
Recent Irish opinion polls made headlines. The latest Behaviour and Attitudes poll put Sinn Féin at 37 per cent. For the first time in Irish polling history, the most recent Red C survey placed Sinn Fein above Fine Gael and Fianna Fail combined.
Two new polls were released on the weekend before the elections. The Times reported on the results of Panelbase, a polling institute which has not published any opinion polls on vote intentions in Ireland yet. The Sunday Business Post released an in-depth analysis of a Red C poll. Both polls indicate a continuing rise of Sinn Féin. The Red C poll sees Sinn Féin on a par with Fianna Fáil in first place with 24 per cent each. Panelbase estimates support for Sinn Féin at 21 per cent.
This update adds the poll published by Ipsos MRBI in the Irish Times on 20 January. This poll put Fianna Fáil in pole position (25 per cent), but the difference to Fine Gael (on 23 per cent) is much smaller than in the Behaviour & Attitudes poll published at the weekend, which ranked Fianna Fáil at 32 and Fine Gael at 20 per cent. However, the Ipsos MRBI and the B&A polls suggest a strong increase in support for Sinn Féin. The updated Irish Polling Indicator ranks Fianna Fáil at 24-28.5, Fine Gael at 24.5-27.5 and Sinn Féin at 15.5-20 per cent. We will update the aggregated estimates of the Irish Polling Indicator once new polls become available.
