Red C poll - why people voted the way they did

[FutureTaoiseach]

In the Sunday Business Post today. Findings:

The majority (84 per cent) of people who had taken part in the Red C poll taken just days before the election did go on to vote. Those least likely to end up voting were from the younger 18 to 24-year-old age group and were slightly more likely to be women.

More importantly, however, one in five of those who did end up voting, did not decide who they would vote for until the last week of the election campaign. Half of all voters only made up their minds during the campaign proper.

This in itself emphasises the importance of the actual election campaign on voter behaviour.

In a comparison of claimed voting behaviour with actual behaviour, it becomes apparent that a significant number of people who suggested in the Red C poll just two days before the election they were going to vote for the Green Party, the Progressive Democrats and independent candidates in fact ended up voting for Fianna Fail.

Even in the final days of campaigning, there clearly was movement from supporters of smaller parties towards Fianna Fail.

By analysing the share of the first preference vote among people who had decided which party to vote for at each stage of the election campaign, we gain a clearer understanding of how the election was won.

Among those who made their mind up which party to vote for before the campaign had even started, Fianna Fail support was at 38 per cent, while support for Fine Gael was very high at 32 per cent.

Among those voters who decided during the campaign, but before the final week, this first preference support changed dramatically to Fianna Fail at 42 per cent and Fine Gael at 24 per cent.

Finally, among those who decided in the final week, the shift was even more dramatic, with support for Fianna Fail at 48 per cent and Fine Gael at just 18 per cent.

The trend seen in this swing to Fianna Fail clearly indicates that it was Ahern’s party which gained during the campaign.

That gain was very much at the expense of Fine Gael, which started with a solid base of support but failed to build significantly on that throughout the campaign.

So what were the events of the campaign or the key factors that made the difference for Fianna Fail? Among those who switched their vote, the key reason for changing their mind was the local candidate.

This backs the findings from focus groups before the election which suggested how important the local candidate could be in the final analysis.

Because of Fianna Fail’s strength on the ground, this ‘local candidate’ factor also particularly favoured the party in the final week of the election, when voters focused on which individual candidate they were giving their first preference vote to.

Voters were also asked how much impact a range of events in the campaign had on their decision. The most influential event on voter behaviour appears to have been the televised leaders’ debate, which had an impact on voting behaviour of a third of all who voted.

More importantly, it influenced more than half of those who ended up voting for Fianna Fail. This suggests Bertie Ahern won the debate by a long way among floating voters.

The second most influential event also featured Ahern’s performance, this time in giving his speech to the British parliament. A third of all voters felt this influenced their decision of who to vote for.

Again, more than half of those who ended up voting for Fianna Fail said they were influenced by the speech.

The third most important event also featured Ahern, this time concerning the statement on his finances - 31 per cent of people said they were in some way influenced by this event.

The debate between the leaders of the smaller parties, opinion poll results and the final Late Late Show before polling day all had less impact.

However, it is interesting to note that the debate between the leaders of the smaller parties appears to have had more of an impact among those who ended up voting for Fianna Fail - perhaps due to the poor performances of the smaller party leaders.

Finally, voters were asked which coalition they had hoped would be elected based on who they voted for. Just 13 per cent were looking for a Fianna FailGreen Party coalition, but this does include one in four of all Fianna Fail voters and one in three of all Green Party voters.

At the same time, 23 per cent were hoping for a return of the Fianna Fail-Progressive Democrats coalition. Therefore, more than a third of the electorate (36 per cent) were looking for either a Fianna Fail-Progressive Democrats or Fianna Fail-Green Party coalition.

In fact, more than half of all voters were hoping for a Fianna Fail coalition with some other party....

Also:

....
But in the course of the campaign, Fianna Fail was much more successful than its rivals in persuading people to vote for it. Of the 20 per cent of all voters who made up their minds in the week before voting, almost half of them voted for Fianna Fail - nearly 10 per cent of all votes cast.

These are the people who decided the election in favour of Bertie Ahern.

Just half of voters had definitely made up their mind before the campaign started. However, Fine Gael was extremely strong among this group, with 32 per cent support.

In other words, had Fine Gael been as successful during the campaign as it was in the period leading up to it, the party would now be in government.

The research also points to the importance for Fianna Fail of the long, four-week campaign.

It’s not certain, of course, that Fianna Fail would have lost a three-week campaign.

But the poll shows that the party needed every minute to turn things around.

So what changed? One striking finding of the Red C research is to confirm that the single most important event of the campaign was the leaders’ debate. Of those voters who made up their mind during the campaign, 42 per cent said that the leaders’ debate affected their decision.

Of that 42 per cent, exactly half said it affected their decision ‘‘a lot’’. More than half (53 per cent) of all those who ended up voting for Fianna Fail said that the debate affected their choice.

The leaders’ debate was, of course, not the only thing to affect people’s choice. Voters cited the Taoiseach’s speech in Westminster and his statement on his own finances as being significant.

But the numbers on the debate are pretty unambiguous - so a very strong case can be made for the proposition that Ahern won the election on the night of the debate.

According to RTE, the viewing figures for the debate hit a high of 1.4 million, with an average figure at any point of almost one million people. In other words, Ahern got to speak directly and at length to a huge proportion of all those entitled to vote.

Despite an equivocal reaction from many commentators immediately after the debate, subsequent polling showed that most voters had scored the debate heavily in favour of the Taoiseach.

This research shows that the judgement made by the watching voters influenced their choice of vote.

Consistent research in the run-up to the election showed that voters considered health, crime and the economy to be the most important issues facing the country, and much of the leaders’ debate was dominated by discussion of the parties’ plans on these subjects.

Given the overwhelming judgement of votes on the debate, the conclusion that the Taoiseach effectively defended government policy and undermined Fine Gael’s ‘‘contract for a better Ireland’’ in the course of the debate is inescapable.

Where Fine Gael was successful, according to the research, was in the years before 2007 and in the lead-in to the campaign in the early months of this year.

The party’s essentially populist campaigns on crime and ‘‘rip-off Ireland’’ struck a chord with many voters, and put Enda Kenny in a strong position - despite misgivings among swing voters about the Fine Gael leader.

Ultimately, though, of those who made up their minds during the campaign, far fewer were convinced by Kenny.

Of the 20 per cent who made up their minds in the last week, less than one-fifth (18 per cent) voted for Fine Gael.

This finding challenges the assertion that Kenny ran a very successful election campaign. In fact, while the party’s operations were thorough and effective and its candidate strategy vindicated, it seems that, when push came to shove, Fine Gael was fatally damaged by Kenny’s weaknesses.

[wombat]

Interesting. More than half the people are happy with the govt.?

[SPN]

... when push came to shove, Fine Gael was fatally damaged by Kenny’s weaknesses.

How dare they!

Everybody knows it was the Greens fault!

[FutureTaoiseach]

... when push came to shove, Fine Gael was fatally damaged by Kenny’s weaknesses.

How dare they!

Everybody knows it was the Greens fault!

[rockofcashel]

Um no.. I think it said that more than half of the electorate wanted a FF lead Government

This sort of research certainly puts a few challenging questions to parties in the future.

In 2002, did not want to debate between Ahern and Noonan, as they felt Noonan might show Ahern up, so they played the whole debate thing down, while in 2007, it seems that they had identified Kenny as FG's weak link, and drew him to the debate with the intention of scuttling him. I think they were right to target him (had been saying it for months), and their plan worked.

Even if Ahern had a bad night, it really had to be a fantastic night for Kenny to make an impression, and in all honesty he didn't do it. (Mind you, I'll admit, I listened to most of it on the radio coming back from canvassing, and I thought he did better than I had expected)

If anyone "won" this election in my opinion, it was Brian Cowen. His "tour de forces" on both Q&A's and especially The News at One, in the week before the election (where he dismantled FG's economic heavyweight Richard Bruton, despite Rover's freakout), really focussed minds in the final few days.

Let's be honest about all this. Despite many people attempting to create a feeling of doom and gloom about the economy, most Irish people have seen the upside of the Celtic Tiger in recent years. That may be due to being up to their necks in debt, but the reality is, they are still looking at 42" plasma screens, and driving 06/07 cars, bought from their 3rd re-mortgage. FF said "we gave you that, and if you vote for that lot, you'll lose it all". It might have been a crude message, but it did the trick. The only thing is, if the bubble does burst, and people get into really serious financial difficulties, then FF's electoral fortunes might follow the downturn as much as they followed the upswing.

The saving grace for FF is however, FG don't really articulate anything very different from what FF do, except to say, we'll do the same, only better/faster/less wastefully etc. That's not enough to make people change.


The other thing to consider, for the smaller parties like ourselves, is why bother with the "baby debates" in future. There is no upside to them. They emphasise the insignificance of the smaller parties having the have their little run out before the main event, and leave open opportunities to lose support as what happened with SF in this election.

In fact, looking back, going to that debate was a terrible decision. Mc Dowell destroyed a lot of possible transfers for SF with his attack on Adams, when there was no downside to Mc Dowell doing so. In my opinion, we walked absolutely blind into that one. And then Gerry's frankly terrible performance on the economics of the election. That just put the cherry on the top of a terrible debate for us.

In future, we should steer well clear of those debates. I think that we have found our "floor" level as far as votes are concerned i.e. 7%, but we still have opportunities to grow a few more points. These debates don't help.

Again while some revel in out failures at this election, if you spread out the result and look at it, we didn't do as bad as one might have thought.

We came painfully close to winning two seats in Donegal, with two young candidates. Next time out, FG won't be running Mc Ginley in Donegal, and Mc Daid won't run in North West. If we can keep our heads, and keep our work going, then these are eminently achievable.

Killian Forde will most likely take over from Larry O Toole, and is in position to take Tommy Broughans seat maybe not next time, but the time after. David Cullinane may be close enough to take the Waterford "left" seat when O Shea eventually bows out. And we will be fighting like dogs to get back a seat in DSW.

I still believe that FF will eventually have a bad election, and SF will be the likely beneficiaries of that. Maybe Mary Lou might get past FF for a seat with Bertie off the pitch in DC next time out, who knows.

All isn't lost though

[clareman51]

I've said it before. FG will struggle with EK as a leader. He cost them the election. With the PD implosion, and Bertie's money woes, any competent opposition leader should have annihilated FF in the election.

[tonys]

This is obviously a rogue piece of research, 1 in 20 pieces of research are you know. I read all about rogue polls and the like of that on this site just before the election, so it must be true.


What’s interesting is that this shows just how wrong the political commentators were about the result of the leaders debate and in denying the true result, how far they were willing to go not to give Ahern or FF any support. It’s also interesting and I think surprising that 1/3 of green party supporters favoured a FF/GN Government before the election results were in.

[wombat]

I've said it before. FG will struggle with EK as a leader. He cost them the election. With the PD implosion, and Bertie's money woes, any competent opposition leader should have annihilated FF in the election.

I disagree that Kenny is a problem for FG, I think it was his front bench which lost it for him. Bertie is no intellectual giant, actualy he's as thick as two short planks. FF's advantage was they could hide Roche, Culle, O'Cuiv. FG couldn't hide O'Keefe, Hogan was one of their main spokesmen, Toomey was poor on television. When the question is reduced to who will manage the economy to protect the SUV and Plasma TV, you cannot afford wek links like FG had

[Deep Throat]

I hope John Deasy didnt read the Sunday Business Post or else Enda may be in trouble
(wink wink)

[wombat]

I hope John Deasy didnt read the Sunday Business Post or else Enda may be in trouble
(wink wink)

It will be interesting to see if they bury the hatchet. Deasy is a bit junior to adopt the role of crank. He could rebuild his credability within FGif he makes an effort. His danger is that if FG have a good election next time and get a seat with a candidate based in Waterford and subsequently have a bad one & lose a seat, Deasy will be toast.