Entering the final week of an election campaign is a bit like an athlete taking the bell in a big race – one last lap, leaving it all on the track, with enough in store for one hell of a final push for the line.
In the Irish presidential election campaign, polls are suggesting that Catherine Connolly (Independent) is taking the bell with plenty of track to spare over her rival Heather Humphreys (Fine Gael). A B&A Irish Times opinion poll on Thursday suggests that Connolly leads Humphreys by 18% (38 v 20). Despite withdrawing from the race earlier this month, 5% of respondents indicated support for Fianna Fáil’s Jim Gavin, whose name will remain on the ballot paper. 17% of those polled were still undecided, and a large cohort felt unrepresented, with a further 12% expressing their intention not to vote, and 8% intending to spoil their vote.
Right now, to most observers, this election looks to be a done deal. Based on the latest poll, with Gavin’s 5% splitting equally between Connolly and Humphreys, even all the undecided voters coming the way of Humphreys would not be enough to save her. And the poll is consistent with previous polls from other companies, which all showed Connolly with a commanding lead. Could all the pollsters be wrong? Possibly, but unlikely.
So, is it really all over? Bookmakers Paddy Power seemed to think so as early as October 8th, when they paid out on bets on Catherine Connolly. As one quick-witted colleague pointed out in response to this: They paid out on the Cork hurlers too (Cork lost the All-Ireland final following a calamitous second-half collapse by the way). By Thursday morning, the said bookmakers were offering odds of 9/2 on Humphreys versus an unbackable 1/6 on Connolly. But, perhaps it’s too early to count chickens. Just ask Seán Gallagher.
2011 was the first time I got to vote in a presidential election. In 1997, I was only 15 years old, and we didn’t have an election in 2004, when no candidate secured a nomination to challenge the incumbent President Mary McAleese. So, at 29 years of age, I was finally getting my chance to have a say in electing our head of state. I was a member of Dáil Éireann by then, immersed in a world of politics and politicians. In the corridors of Leinster House, the phenomenal performance of Seán Gallagher’s campaign was the big talking point.
Eight days out from polling, a Red C poll suggested that Gallagher (Independent) was in the lead with 39%. In second place, trailing by 12 points came one Michael D Higgins of the Labour Party on 27%. In third was the late Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin on 13%, with Fine Gael’s Gay Mitchell on just 8%, Independent Senator David Norris on 7%, and Independents Mary Davis and Dana Rosemary Scallon on 4% and 2% respectively. Four days before polling, Red C had Gallagher on 40% and Higgins on 26%. The same day, a Sunday Times poll had Gallagher on 38% and Higgins on 26%...all fairly consistent.
Then came the final television debate three days before polling. It turned into a disaster for Gallagher. A few days later, Higgins topped the poll on 39.6%, with Gallagher sliding to second on 28.5%. Higgins went on to win the election comfortably on transfers. What’s my point here? It’s not over until the polls close. Events happen, and anything could happen in the final week. In a two-horse race especially, a major slip-up by one candidate could directly benefit the other. But, is this likely?
So far, despite numerous controversies surrounding both Connolly and Humphreys, nothing seems to have inflicted major damage on either. There was no Gallagher 2011-like moment where a campaign implodes in seconds. For Connolly in particular, even the story about one of her past Leinster House hires seems to have inflicted little or no damage (in 2018 she had hired a person who had been jailed for six years by the Special Criminal Court in 2014 for unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition). It would appear now, at this juncture, that it would take something monumental to change the trajectory.
One final caveat surrounding the latest poll. Just 12% of the 1,200 people surveyed between last Sunday and Tuesday indicated that they will not vote. If this is replicated on polling day, it will result in by far the highest ever turnout in an Irish presidential election. An 88% turnout would be 23.3% higher than our current highest recorded turnout, which was 64.7% in 1966. 88% would also represent more than twice the turnout in the most recent presidential election in 2018, which was the lowest in our history at 43.9%. Such a turnout is extremely unlikely, with one Senator telling me this week that he predicts an even lower turnout than 2018.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Motivating electors to actually come out and vote will be a key factor. Complacency, defeatism and indifference will feature as challenges for the candidates’ campaigns in the final days. Just how tuned in are members of the public about this contest?
As was the case when I wrote my previous blog, right now, Catherine Connolly has the lead and the momentum. It should be enough to take her first across the line. But a week out in 2011, they said the same about Seán Gallagher. Sometimes the final lap is really in the lap of the gods.
Brendan Griffin is a former Fine Gael TD for Kerry and former Minister for Tourism and Sport.
