Election to be called Fri - predict outcome

"Baffling" that a person who is 64 would retire? Hardly.

She's OK as long as she stays north of 25.

Below 20 and it's all over 100%.

Oh she does, she gets it on here too.

I think she's done either way. She was supposed to lead SF to gov North and South, break with the past etc., and that's not happening in this election even if they pull off a big result. FG won't deal with them, that would change after SF spend time in government and are house trained,and notwithstanding Micheal Martin's position on SF, FF were always an option if the numbers were there and there wasn't any other alternative but given events of the last week they wouldn't do it at the moment.

It also seems to the case that the personal/health issues she's faced have taken their toll on her.

That would be great, marginalising SF and creating a proper opposition.

Isn't it funny how these targets are continually being shaved back, in a management of expectations before the guillotine falls. It wasn't long ago that 60 seats was being talked about.

Sincerely,

Leinster Rugby Supporting Centrist Dad.

Who was talking about 60 seats? SF were never going to sustain the poll numbers of a year/18 months ago, admittedly their spiral downwards has been sharper than anyone expected/predicted.

Pressure now for Sinn Fein to pick someone for Dublin Bay South. I suspect we'll have all the names in the ring by the end of the week.

Seat aggregation from last few weekends' polling:

Fine Gael - 50

Independents and Others - 39

Sinn Féin - 34

Fianna Fáil - 30

Soc Dems- 7

Independent Ireland - 4

People Before Profit - 4

Aontú - 3

Labour - 2

Greens - 1

One things for certain, she won't be proclaiming that she "may well be the next Taoiseach" like she did during the last count.

Those seats prediction guys are never right. Figures below the top three are random guesswork and realistically, the figures they're giving SF now are at best described as misguided

FF and FF figures may be close to reality.

They aren't predictions, they are aggregated poll data from the big Sunday newspaper polls of recent weeks, which is what I described it as.

They don't take into account anything on a constituency level or local quirks or recent boundary changes etc.

But I'd still say that if the election outcome reflects the polling, those seat totals will be right within +/- 20%, which is to say FG will be within 40 and 60 seats, and so on.

It's hard to know with PBPA/Sol, I don't see them retaining Smith's seat with De Nortúin though she might unseat Joan Collins.Gino Kenny might hold on given SF's problems, I think Murphy is vulnerable but I suspect he'll hold on, Coppinger should get back in DW with the extra seat and SFs prospects of a second now redundant. Mick Barry in CNC is also vulnerable. Conor Reddy in DNW could do well but in a 3 seater I think it's a stretch to see him elected. On a good day they get 6 (RBB, Murphy, Kenny, De Nortuin, Coppinger and Barry) on a bad day they get 2 (RBB, Coppinger).

Where are these coming from? Some very dubious predictions there

Aontu on 3? Really? What are the 2 new seats they're going to win?

Labour on 2? Again, really?

Sinn Fein only losing 3 seats? Is this person even looking at the latest polling data? I have been arguing against them dropping under 20 but having them on 34 seems fanciful.

If any of these guys making prediction models were being honest they'd have error bars on their predictions of plus or minus 5-10 seats, which for the small parties makes them practically meaningless.

It's impossible to make accurate predictions in our elections for 2 reasons:

1. We don't have high quality constituency level polling
2. It's extremely difficult to predict the final seats in most constituencies

That means that all these models instead resort to projecting national polling data onto individual constituencies. That's really only useful for the big 3 parties who will be competitive in almost every constituency in the country.

For smaller parties, especially those who only run candidates in certain constituencies it's a very clumsy approximation. Somebody predicting Aontu getting 3 seats is a good indicator that that's what this person has done here.

It won't be dissolved this week as they need to pass the Finance Bill before that happens. They have committed to doing that before the election is called.