Dublin Central and Dublin South Election Statistics (Maps)

[Casualbets]

Here's a few maps'n'stats relating to the forthcoming by elections...



The following table shows the breakdown of support in different areas according to the proportion of managerial and professional workers in a DED - a simple rule of thumb is that under 30% means an area is mainly working-class, and over 50% means it's mainly middle-class...

[Casualbets]

Here's the same for Dublin South...





and here's a map sahowing the proportion of Managerial/Professional workers by DED



Legend

Lt Red >60%
Dk Red 50-60%
Green 40-50%
Dk Blue 30-40%
Lt Blue <30%

[Lefournier]

Interesting charts, thanks. They highlight how socially diverse both these constituencies are.

Oddly, the table says SF got more (7%) in DC from the areas with over 50% managers/professionals, than from the mixed areas (6%). Of course, that's but much less than the 13% they got in mainly working class areas.

FYI - the dark red (50 = 60% Man. /Prof.) looks brown in my browser.

With FF gettomg over 45% of first preferences in DC in 2007, why are pundits writing off their chances in the byelection?

Bertie got over 37% of first preferences. Even if his brother collects only half that number, he'll top the poll. Admittedly, transfers to Ff will be few and far between but looking at the FG numbers from 2007, it will be an astonishing turn-around if P. Donohue can win the seat. I think it will be a battle between FF and the left-wing. C. Burke will poll solidly but he's been an also-ran too often. Ivana Bacik will not extend the shift to Labour and loyalty to T. Gregory is strong. Whichever leftwinger is ahead will hoover up transfers and will probably overtake M. Ahern. Wouldn't it be ironic if transfers from FG got M O'Sullivan elected?

[TommyO'Brien]

Interesting charts, thanks. They highlight how socially diverse both these constituencies are.

Oddly, the table says SF got more (7%) in DC from the areas with over 50% managers/professionals, than from the mixed areas (6%). Of course, that's but much less than the 13% they got in mainly working class areas.

FYI - the dark red (50 = 60% Man. /Prof.) looks brown in my browser.

With FF gettomg over 45% of first preferences in DC in 2007, why are pundits writing off their chances in the byelection?

Bertie got over 37% of first preferences. Even if his brother collects only half that number, he'll top the poll. Admittedly, transfers to Ff will be few and far between but looking at the FG numbers from 2007, it will be an astonishing turn-around if P. Donohue can win the seat. I think it will be a battle between FF and the left-wing. C. Burke will poll solidly but he's been an also-ran too often. Ivana Bacik will not extend the shift to Labour and loyalty to T. Gregory is strong. Whichever leftwinger is ahead will hoover up transfers and will probably overtake M. Ahern. Wouldn't it be ironic if transfers from FG got M O'Sullivan elected?

I think you are missing one fundamental fact - Irish politics in the last two years has undergo a party vote revolution of a sort unprecedented in recent electoral politics. FF's vote has plummeted according to all statistica surveys. In contrast FG's Dublin support according to the most recent polls have rocketed - 17% to 30% in the capital. FG support among working class voters has also shot up dramatically. That is shown in Sunday's poll that showed Donohoe going from 9% in 2007 to 28% today, and that is on a telephone poll which, as it is legally restricted to using landlines, will have a disproportionately lower participation rate of the two groups where FG has made dramatic inroads in in the last 2 years, 18-24s and working class voters, both of whom mainly rely nowadays on mobiles and don't have landlines.

Political systems on rare occasions throw up political paradigm shifts. Arguably the last longterm one was back in the 1930s when FF achieved and maintained dominance. The one before that was in 1917-1918. In poll statistics, numbers showing up are not merely slightly or somewhat different to 2007, but in whole swathes of the country utterly different, making direct comparative analysis, for once, actually of minimal usage. The Gregory team, for example, even a month ago were finding evidence of Donohoe support in parts of the constituency where Fine Gael never got a vote before. Canvassers across the parties are also finding unexpected transfer patterns showing up (FG 1, SF 2; FF 1, SF 2; SF 1, FG 2, etc) plus quite a lot of negativity about Bacik being from outside the constituency, her views on abortion, etc (remember Central is a heavily conservative constituency - it had the highest No divorce vote in the referendum!).

So parties are operating in an electoral world out there that is different to anything they ever experienced before, and elementary presumptions are being contradicted on the doorsteps.

[Observer]

Interesting charts, thanks. They highlight how socially diverse both these constituencies are.

Oddly, the table says SF got more (7%) in DC from the areas with over 50% managers/professionals, than from the mixed areas (6%). Of course, that's but much less than the 13% they got in mainly working class areas.

Looking at the table below the maps - for which much thanks to Casualbets - there's only one DED in Dublin Central in the >50% category - Phoenix Park (only 152 votes) - which makes for "noisy" data. We can make broad conclusions about the difference between the first two categories (<30%- and 30%-50%) though.

[PetevonPete]

If Sunday’s poll had Sinn Fein on Dublin central on 3% and Fine Gael on 28% - all that means is there is something wrong with the poll, one such figure would be interesting to have two such totally out of whack results means has to be a poll problem. I think we must weight for an MRBI poll, if there is to be one before anything can be said.

[TommyO'Brien]

If Sunday’s poll had Sinn Fein on Dublin central on 3% and Fine Gael on 28% - all that means is there is something wrong with the poll, one such figure would be interesting to have two such totally out of whack results means has to be a poll problem. I think we must weight for an MRBI poll, if there is to be one before anything can be said.

The poll was a telephone poll, which severely disadvantaged SF as it legally can only use landlines and working class ownership of landlines is disproportionately small compared to middle class support. So a lot of SF's working class support would not have been caught in the sample.

That also would have lowered the FG's percentage. Opinion polls in the last two years have shown a dramatic rise in working class support for FG and they too would have been missing from that sample.

That is why I am always sceptical about phone polls. They are based on a fallacy - equal access to, and ownership of, landlines. They are also reflective of timing. (Call during the day and you will get a disproportionate number of unemployed people and retired people.)

The usefulness of the poll is not the exact numbers, but that it suggests that the main ABFF (anybody but FF) candidate is Donohoe, and that strengthens the chance of him winning. In addition it suggests that the Labour candidate is about 2/3 the FG candidate's standing, which is rather too large a margin for comfort for the Labour candidate and suggests that FF as elsewhere has crashed and burnt. I think in reality FF will be higher, SF considerably higher, but that the FF vote will come from the undecideds (ie, they did not to admit to being a closet FFer) while the missing SF vote may affect both the Labour and Gregory candidates, who may have been artificially boosted by the absence from the sample of SF support. In addition of all the candidates, the one with most unexplored negatives is Bacik because her personal 'issues' (feminism, etc) are less likely to go down well in central, given that it is one of the most socially conservative constituencies in the city.

[Observer]

If Sunday’s poll had Sinn Fein on Dublin central on 3% and Fine Gael on 28% - all that means is there is something wrong with the poll, one such figure would be interesting to have two such totally out of whack results means has to be a poll problem. I think we must weight for an MRBI poll, if there is to be one before anything can be said.

It's a "Quantum Research" poll - there seems to be a company registered under that name (Quantum Research Group) at the same address as Arthur Cox Solicitors of Earlsfort Terrace since November 2006. Arthur Cox certainly seem to have a lot of expertise in registering companies in this country. They have nothing to do with Quantum Research International, a manufacturer of touchscreen systems based in Hampshire.

However, unlike RedC or MRBI, "Quantum Research" doesn't seem to be involved in market research of any other type in this country.

A poll of 300 people per constituency, even with proper sampling which this doesn't seem to have, would bring in a sizeable margin of error, so it's probably a bit more scientific than chicken entrails - but not a lot.

Not that that's going to stop the frantic spinning from Fine Gael Head Office that we can see a sample of above.

[Lefournier]

I think you are missing one fundamental fact - Irish politics in the last two years has undergo a party vote revolution of a sort unprecedented in recent electoral politics. FF's vote has plummeted according to all statistica surveys.

That is the nub of it; if P. Donohue wins this by-election, we are witnessing a paradigm shift which would be disastrous for FF, obviously, but it would also mean the left-wing vote has failed to hold a seat that is strongly identified with a socialist voice at a time when global capitalism is facing its greatest challenge.

Like other posters, I take no notice of the Sunday Indo's Quantum polls. My guess is that there will be an Anybody But FF vote but that those who do vote FF will pass their preferences to Anybody But FG. So either way, the left-wing candidate who garners the most 1st. preferences stands to gain most in the later counts. If M. O'S. can get the Gregory vote out, I think she has the inside track.

Now that's a paradigm shift.

[midlander12]

Will be gobsmacked if Ahern is anything more than third - in fact I expect him to come 4th or possibly 5th. The left is seriously challenged by the lack of a single strong candidate who can hoover if transfers when the weaker ones get eliminated - you could have Burke, O'Sullivan and Bacik all on about 15%, with Donohoe on say 23-25% and gradually building up a lead as the counts go on. However my money would be still on the strongest left candidate shading it, possibly Burke on FF transfers!!