Getting the strategy right

Getting the strategy right

Managing Votes
Michael Commins

THE Mayo News/Millward Brown IMS opinion poll for the Mayo constituency will give plenty of thought to the strategists for the parties as well as for the independent candidates. Opinion polls, by their nature, cast up some unlikely scenarios and often are well out of sync with what actually transpires on election day.
The one consistent showing in all the opinion polls to date is that Fine Gael’s Michael Ring and Enda Kenny are the front runners in Mayo. Ring has also been ahead of his party leader in every poll, a fact that will weigh heavy on the minds of the planners both in Mayo and at party HQ in Dublin.
Fine Gael strategists will be scratching their heads as they try to devise a way in which O’Mahony and Mulherin can benefit from the strong showing of Ring and Kenny. Questions are already being asked about the wisdom of selecting four candidates at a time when Fianna Fáil are content to go with three.
If Fine Gael can take 50 per cent of the first preference vote and still end up with two seats, it will be nothing short of a vote management disaster for the party in the constituency of their leader, Enda Kenny.
Transfers from Ring and Kenny to the other two candidates are not coming through in any kind of big numbers to deliver the third seat. How some of the parties would love to have the political strategists that saw Sinn Féin win five of the six seats in West Belfast a few weeks ago in what has been described as the greatest piece of vote management ever witnessed on the island of Ireland.
While the poll in this week’s Mayo News shows Ring and Kenny taking 41 per cent of the vote between them, one just has to question such figures. It is most unlikely that they can register two out of every five votes cast in Mayo when people go to the polls in a few weeks’ time. It also has to be remembered that, despite Michael Ring’s strong showing in all opinion polls, he has never been elected on the first count in any General Election. In other words, his percentage on polling day hovers around the 15 per cent mark.
The latest figures would tend to suggest that Enda Kenny can more than double his vote from five years ago which, even allowing for his new status as party leader, would be a quite phenomenal feat.
John O’Mahony will be somewhat disappointed with the latest poll which shows him on just four per cent, despite a very high profile in the county and after a lot of grassroots canvassing. (I believe O’Mahony is quite a bit stronger than this poll shows and that Ring and Kenny are a few percentage points lower). Michelle Mulherin shows up on five per cent but suffers from the same drawback as the Ballina Fianna Fáil candidate, Dara Calleary, with very little transfers coming through.
The poll shows that over a third of Michelle Mulherin’s vote will be non-transferable, which looks very high, and that Dara Calleary is in line to pick up less than 25 per cent of it. If this were to happen on election day, the chances of Ballina electing a TD would recede dramatically.
As things stand in this poll, Ballina will still be without a TD, a scenario that I highlighted in an article some weeks ago. If Dara Calleary and Michelle Mulherin register just 13 per cent between them (as this poll suggests), the town on the banks of the Moy will certainly have no locally-based representation in Dáil Éireann as votes transferring northwards are in very short supply.
While some Fianna Fáil folk will not publicly admit it, a scenario where the party could take two seats and Beverley Flynn take another as an Independent would be a brilliant result for them overall. On these figures, such an outcome is unlikely. However, there is one message that appears to be emerging as the election draws nearer and this is in relation to John Carty as the party’s front runner. Carty seems to be consolidating his position and would appear to have moved nicely ahead of Calleary and Chambers. He is also in a position to pick up more transfers if these figures were to emerge on count day.
The Dara Calleary team will look at these figures with a little trepidation. If the Ballina region falls well short of a quota on the first count, Ballina will not have a TD and that is crystal clear.
Frank Chambers and opinion polls just don’t go together. Five years ago, Frank showed up at less than he is in this poll and yet polled almost 6,000 votes on the day. He is confident that he is much higher than five per cent and that this will only serve to motivate his team of workers.
Sinn Féin’s Gerry Murray is on an upward curve and would have hoped to be a few percentage points higher in this poll. With the party on a roll and set to get a good many extra seats, Murray’s performance on polling day will be significantly higher than five per cent. Indeed, he remains a real contender for the fifth seat.
Sitting TD Dr Jerry Cowley (Independent) will be somewhat relieved to get a bit of good news in the closing weeks of the campaign. There is a general perception that he is in a tight corner and battling hard to retain his seat. While his first preference looks set to be well down, one of his strengths is his ability to pick up significant transfers, something that will play a crucial role in the destination of the last three seats.
Beverley Flynn has a lot of reason to be pleased with this poll. If she can register ten per cent on polling day, she has every chance of retaining her seat. She too appears to be doing well on transfers and this is mirrored right across the constituency where the Castlebar deputy seems to have got a lot of goodwill on her side.
The only certainties from this poll would appear to be that Ring and Kenny look safe and that Harry Barrett of the Labour Party and Peter Enright of the Green Party will bring up the rear.
In between is where the real action will be … and you can certainly expect a fair bit of internal wrangling in both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. There’s a belief in the Chambers camp that they have been left to virtually fight an independent campaign
Any effort by Fine Gael strategists to curtail Michael Ring’s huge personal vote is likely to be met with very strong resistance by the Westport deputy who believes that his huge vote is for work done and that he deserves every vote he gets. It will not be easy to ring-fence the man who got the biggest Fine Gael vote in the country in the last general election.
With the countdown now well under way, there is still a lot to play for and, like every election, there could still be a few big surprises in store that have not been caught in the net of this opinion poll. As Charlie Haughey once said, the only poll that matters is the people’s poll on election day. When all is said and done, it’s the only one that matters.