General Election and Government Formation Megathread (see post #1)

KevRossi wrote: »

A couple of points on the SF surge:
1. Will they actually manage to get their vote out? They have the highest ratings with the youngest voters, but these are historically always less inclined to vote.
2. Will they get transfers? They aren't as transfer friendly as the Greens or others, so they'll suffer there.
3. Doing poorly in Dublin as the 'left' and 'angry voter' segment is crowded out with PBP, Solidarity, RISE and various Independents. You would think that they would enter into some form of voting pact and not cannibalise each other, but a lot of that vote is personality politics.

Interestingly, Paddy Power has SF down today as winning 14.5% of the vote or 20/21 seats and no more.

If anyone really believes this is nonsense then just put €100 on and you'll get €180 back. The odds are 5/6 for more than 14.5% or 21+ seats.

I think with polling day on a Saturday it might encourage more younger people to vote than normal. On Fridays, young people are in college/work and likely are busy in the evenings meeting friends/partners so likely don't bother voting or can't make it home in time to vote, especially if they study/work in Dublin but they vote in the country. On Saturdays, a lot of college students should be home on polling day and other young people who work full-time might be off.

Transfers are tricky to predict. Are SF less/more toxic than FF/FG to voters?

I think SF learned their lessons from last years' disasterous local and european elections and will endeavour to get their vote out in each constituency, especially in Dublin, so we will see how the vote splits with other left-wing groups.

I personally think the polls are overestimating SF but maybe not as much as they did previously.... I predict around 16% of the vote with around 25 seats.

cameramonkey wrote: »

Are people getting pensions now at 65? If so, is it not already funded but the government has decided to pull that funding.

It's 66 now and was supposed to be 67 next year.

cameramonkey wrote: »

Are people getting pensions now at 65? If so, is it not already funded but the government has decided to pull that funding.

Yes they just pulled it for the laugh I'm sure just to annoy people.

cameramonkey wrote: »

They made a political choice by deciding that people cannot get a pension at 66. The government decided that they would not fund what was there already.
You were wondering how it would be funded, the answer is it is funded already so no need to worry.

See this will be fun of having SF in office- grown ups will have to make actual decisions instead of political oppurtunism and Facebook likes- they can "choose" to cut HAP, disability payments etc to pay the Pensioners then instead.

cameramonkey wrote: »

They made a political choice by deciding that people cannot get a pension at 66. The government decided that they would not fund what was there already.
You were wondering how it would be funded, the answer is it is funded already so no need to worry.

Except its not. The issue isnt when people start getting their pension, its for how long they have to keep paying it.

Unless people are deliberately ignoring the reality just to play politics, i dont see how anyone doesnt see that longer life expectancy essentially means that our current system is not tenable.

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

FF's spokesman on Brexit is Sean Haughey - lol

I'm sure he is a nice chap but i'd have Coveney doing our dealings in Europe over Haughey any day of the week.

Agree he’s dire but is it not Lisa Chambers?

Ah, it appears Haughey replaced Collins at Foreign Affairs, and Chambers remains in situ:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fianna_Fáil_Front_Bench

charlie14 wrote: »

On the margin of error in this latest poll.

According to a Gaven Reilly of Virgin Media tweet the margin of error by demographics is +- 2.8% but by age it is almost double that +- 5.5%.

There was a lot of noise over retirement age when this poll was conducted so could that margin of error of 5.5% be related to that possibly ?

I don't know.
It's still a very confused picture and we need a few more polls.

Gobsmacked with the Greens performance too, they don't seem to be convincing any huge number of the young vote and surely they should be?

FF saying they want to redesign the Dublin metro in 2022.

The project is due to go to planning this year and begin construction next year. FF want to wreck it.

Oh and bus connects too.

Gombeens.

hotmail.com wrote: »

The environment thing isn't as big an issue for voters as is being presented. People care about the environment but old fashioned bread and butter issues still dominate.

Young people are far out weighed by middle aged and older people anyway so I'm not quite sure why people concentrate on the younger vote thing.

Because they are the most volatile and more likely to change their minds.
The right type of Facebook post can do it.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

I don't know.
It's still a very confused picture and we need a few more polls.

Gobsmacked with the Greens performance too, they don't seem to be convincing any huge number of the young vote and surely they should be?

Not even trying to make sense of them, just an educated guess what they might mean for numbers! When you drill down into the reports they go everywhere.
Dublin will skew the Green vote share and that's where most of their seats will come from. Data from both polls shows reasonable support for the main three amongst the yoof too.

is_that_so wrote: »

Not even trying to make sense of them, just an educated guess what they might mean for numbers! When you drill down into the reports they go everywhere.
Dublin will skew the Green vote share and that's where most of their seats will come from. Data from both polls shows reasonable support for the main three amongst the yoof too.

No more than Leo emerging as a toxic weight for FG, I think Ryan is not inspiring a demographic that has been awakened around the world.