Election to be called Fri - predict outcome

How will more workers fix the viability issues with apartment building in this country?

There are only so many Clay Farms can be built in Dublin before we soon run out of space. Density is required, but under current FF housing minister apartments have become less and less viable to build, so much so that apartment commencements have cratered recently.

Jim O'Callaghan takes a sipe at McEntee and McEntee responds with the sexism card.

Such a pain in the hole

The new planning bill will make it much harder for people to object to new developments. Judicial reviews will be much harder to enact.

Making it harder for nimbys to block devrlopments is exactly what we need, I agree with you. Thats what the bill will do.

Curious where you have Aontú getting 2 extra seats? They are such a one-man show that last night on prime time they had 2 Limerick candidates (Brian Leddin of the Greens, Conor Sheehan from Labour) and then had Peadar Tóibín and just mentioned that their local candidate is X.

It's kind of established now in the campaign that the government parties are getting hammered on the big ticket items and are finding it difficult to move the conversation elsewhere.

I'm wondering have FG made a fatal error in calling an election when their man is Taoiseach?

Is that the reason for them falling 2% in the polls? Would they have been better going for what the 'man' originally claimed he wanted, the full term?

He is going full term.

Have you forgotten about the margin of error in polls?

I am fairly certain that you made several references to the margin of error when Sinn Fein started falling back in support, maybe I am wrong.

On the topic, I expect FG to finish as the biggest party, but I expect all three of the main parties to fall back from their current level of support, we are seeing this with both FG and SF in this poll. Voters will swing to the independents and to smaller parties. It could bring chaos.

As for the big ticket items, I haven't seen a single new idea from the opposition that is moving the dial in terms of solutions.

Yes, I am taking the margin of error into account as always. FG could have been on 29% in the previous poll, but they have fallen from that (taking the margin into account) and can only potentially get to 27% (am I really having to explain this?)

Regardless of whether there are new ideas on the big ticket items it is true to say that they are being hammered on failure on those items in every debate I have seen. The Taoiseach himself was on the back foot from the off in his 'big' interview.

IMO if the 'slide' (as another poster called it) continues FG could well be eclipsed by FF, which would be strategically a huge blunder.

FF are a much stronger organisation on the ground than FG and have an established shy vote,lent through gritted teeth to FG in 2011,the first crack in the civil war politics

FG have little to no discipline behind the scenes whereas FF have a lot comparatively,they’re just better at it
The Eoghan Murphy book is a great example of this

You wouldn’t see one from FF in the middle of an election

They are down two points in the Irish Times poll.

You should know by now that different polls use different methodologies (am I really having to explain this) so using the margin of error to compare different polls is silly. However, let's go there. If FG are on 29% in one poll with a MOE of 2% in that poll and on 25% with a MOE of 2% in a poll by a different company, then it is possible that taking the MOE into account, their support hasn't changed. Claiming that as a 4% fall is taking the extremes (why am I bothering, you will just ignore).

Trends are your friend and looking back six to twelve months tells you a full story.

On 26th September 2023, Sinn Fein was on 34% in the Irish Times poll, FF on 20% and FG on 18%.

What do today's results show? A massive swing away from Sinn Fein, and a massive swing towards FG, not necessarily the same voters doing both, but that is the story.

Harris is the most popular leader. Go back to 2020 when MLMD was popular (hard to remember I know) and SF got a boost accordingly. Same is applying now to Harris.

Were have I contested that?

As you point out, popularity doesn't last.