Irish Polling Indicator, update July 2023

It looks like 2023 might break the record for the most polls published in a single year. By mid-July, newspapers have released 22 polls. But what do these regularly released polls tell us about the political landscape in Ireland?

Inspecting only the short-term trends, party support seems to be relatively stable. Current support for Sinn Féin currently ranges from 30.5%–34%. Yet, according to the Irish Polling Indicator, over the past 12 months, Mary Lou McDonald’s party has dropped by around four percentage points. The trend is not in favor of Sinn Féin.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are polling at very similar levels. Our aggregated estimates put both parties at around 20%. As previously, the “house effects” for Fianna Fáil are considerably larger than for any other party. Behaviour & Attitudes, a polling firm still using face-to-face surveys, puts Fianna Fáil four percentage points above the average across all pollsters. In comparison, Fianna Fáil support in RedC polls is around 4 points lower than the average pollster. It remains to be seen whether the truth is somewhere in between.

After Holly Cairns became party leader of the Social Democrats, the party has enjoyed a small boost in support. An Ireland Thinks poll, released shortly after the change in leadership, even put the party at 9%. Currently, the SocDems stand at 3–5%, slightly above the numbers at the beginning of 2023.

The Green Party, as the smallest coalition partner, struggles to regain support and reach their levels from the 2020 election. The party currently polls at 3–4.5%. Labour stands at 2.5%–4%, Solidarity-PBP between 2% and 3%, while Aontú polls at 1%–2%. Independent candidates and other parties remain stable at around 11%–14%.

For those interested in fine-grained results across subgroups and over time: We recently launched the Irish Demographic Polling Dashboard for sub-sample results from over 100 polls published between 2011 and 2023. Feel free to check it out and let us know what you think.

Authors: Stefan Müller and Paula Montano