Business Post/Red C Poll 31/05

[marmurr1916]

I wonder who might have said this about the last Red C opinion poll?

One of the most interesting aspects of these polls is the gap emerging on SF’s likely performance in the Euros - notably with respect to FG and SF. TNS-MRBI have Mary-Lou McDonald on 14% in Dublin, outpolling Eoin Ryan on 11% while Eibhlin Byrne trails on 5%. Yet Red C, which breaks down a much smaller sample of 1,000 into regional-samples of 200 or even less has SF on just 7% in the capital, prompting Richard Colwell to state in the Sunday Business Post: “makes it appear likely that the party will lose its European seat.”. Likewise with Libertas, Red C have the party on 5% in Northwest, compared to 9% in the Irish Times poll. Likewise while TNS-MRBI has FG on 38% in a General Election, Red C have them on 34% in a general and local elections, but at just 32% in the Euro elections, where support for Fianna Fáil rises to 25% relative to 22% in the other contests. In part, this reflects the tendency for Euro elections to gravitate to some extent around strong personalities as opposed to mere party-allegiance. Given the larger sample-sizes by TNS-MRBI (2000 nationally and 500 at constituency-level relative to 1001 and approx 200 per euro constituency for Red C), I would afford the Irish Times poll more credibility. In the 2007 election, I was convinced that Red C was closer to the outcome because the people behind them had worked in ICM which had the most accurate poll of the 2002 election, but this was proven incorrect (FF won 41% in TNS-MRBI but just 38% in Red C on the day before the General Election). The Red C euro-poll also suffers from failure to ask respondants about specific candidates.

Could it have been FutureTaoiseach?

Irish Election Sunday Business Post Red C Poll

[TommyO'Brien]

A Sunday Business Post mole on this thread is claiming the newspaper is set to suppress regional-figures from tomorrow’s Red C poll on the euro-election, which place Declan Ganley on 16% in Northwest. Apparently, the newspaper will acknowledge the swing, but not it’s scale. Pressure needs to be brought to bear on the newspaper, in the interests of transparency and with due consideration of the gravity of the issues at stake (including the foremost question of the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty), to follow its standard practice with the previous euro-election polls this year by releasing the regional-breakdown. A failure to do so, especially in the context of a critique of Ganley’s stance on neutrality in tomorrow’s newspaper, can only call into question the impartiality of the publication.needs to be brought to bear on the newspaper, in the interests of transparency and with due consideration of the gravity of the issues at stake (including the foremost question of the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty), to follow its standard practice with the previous euro-election polls this year by releasing the regional-breakdown. A failure to do so, especially in the context of a critique of Ganley’s stance on neutrality in tomorrow’s newspaper, can only call into question the impartiality of the publication. Write to the newspaper to press this point.

You do know that as each regional segment of the poll involved just over 200 respondents, the margin of error is over 5%? If the poll says Ganley is at 16%, that actually means he . . . em . . . somewhere between under 11% and 23%!

No newspaper and no pollster is going to say that a candidate is within such a range. If the range is greater than 6% papers and pollsters tend not to publish them. They would make themselves a laughing stock if they did. But true to form, the true believers of Ganleyism are so blinded by paranoia that they see a newspaper acting in the same way as they would to all the other candidates as some sort of anti-Ganley plot! (It is the same way as when they saw the decision of SIPO applying the exact same rules to Libertas as to all other third parties in referenda they imagined it as some sort of plot against Ganley! In fact those rules were written up long long ago, while Ganley was still in FF.)

In addition, even if Ganley was on 16%, he faces one unsurmountable hurdle - transfers! SFers detest him, seeing him as a puppet of the US military, won't touch him. FGers won't touch him. FFers won't touch him. Left wingers won't touch him, Liberals won't touch him. Harkin supporters won't touch him. He would run into the same problem SF traditionally faces - of being transfer-repellent. So whereas FF (previously, not now) were transfer friendly and that won them extra seats, SF invariably won less seats than their first preference total suggested they should be in the running for, because once they got their own vote they were overtaken by people behind them who got transfers while they were stuck. Because he is transfer-repellent Ganley has to get closer to the 25% on his own steam and not rely on transfers. 16% ain't good enough.

[vid]

THE NW Constituency is a difficult place to poll and last two times result have slightly different to final outcome. In 99 nobody saw the late surge for Dana.And in 04 this was last polls results
"In North-West the talking point will be the performance of Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty who is up a substantial six points to 15%.

The two Fianna Fáil candidates, Jim McDaid and Sean O'Neachtain, are on 18% and 17% respectively, while Dana is up 3 to 10% but Marian Harkin is holding fast at 16%"
RT News
Actual Results pretty much on the money with harkin and doherty. Sean o too but McDaid only got 12% in the election and Dana got 13.52% .

[marmurr1916]

That poll was pretty accurate for Harkin and Doherty. Harkin ended up with 15.8% of FPs, Doherty with 15.5%.

It overestimated the FF vote by 8% (McDaid by 5.6% and O'Neachtain by 2.25%) and underestimated Dana's vote by 3.5%.

Assuming the margin of error for that poll was about 5%, then most results were within that margin, with the result for McDaid slightly outside the MOE range.

[Albert Aherne]

Any info. on Lisbon 2 in this poll?

[marmurr1916]

They asked that question two weeks ago, doubt they'd be asking it again so soon.

[FutureTaoiseach]

The transfer-argument on Ganley is exposed as a myth in this poll. He is not transfer-repellent to the people of NW, 2/3rds of whom voted no. May I add that privately, journo tells me Harkin and FF are 'very worried' about him, and the parties believe his support is 16% and growing. He's also performing spectacularly in Galway.

[Albert Aherne]

They asked that question two weeks ago, doubt they'd be asking it again so soon.

Ok thanks!I just like to know if the recent dramatic increase in the sanity of the electorate i.e. FF about to get a well deserved kicking next week and the electorate showing a desire to vote yes to Lisbon, is continuing.

[hiding behind a poster]

The transfer-argument on Ganley is exposed as a myth in this poll. He is not transfer-repellent to the people of NW, 2/3rds of whom voted no.

But that's not evidence of anything in terms of Ganley's transfer repellance or otherwise. What other evidence have you got?

May I add that privately, journo tells me Harkin and FF are 'very worried' about him, and the parties believe his support is 16% and growing. He's also performing spectacularly in Galway.

"Journo" could be anyone. You haven't the foggiest who he is.

[hiding behind a poster]

I have engaged the poster in further discussion on the specifics, and that leads me to hold firm to the view that he is a credible source. In particular, he claims the newspaper will acknowledge a swing to Libertas but not the scale of it. Furthermore, he states that the Post will carry an article on Ganley's attitude to neutrality tomorrow. That adds to the poster's credibility imho.

I've looked at the figures in the SBP, and needless to say, FT is getting over-excited. Libertas register at 4% in the European poll, and in the accompanying article, it says Ganley gets the majority of that. So, 4% of 1,000 voters is about 40 people saying they'll vote Libertas in the Euros, across the three constituencies. Let's say Simons and O'Malley are on 1% each, which is about 2.5 people in each of their constituencies saying they'll vote Libertas. That leaves 35 Libertas voters, all of whom are in North-West. Presumably 250 people were sampled in NW, so that's 35/250 being Ganley voters - which is 14%. And that is if you give Ganley the benefit of the doubt in every aspect of those figures. And we all know that at 14% Ganley is in contention, but by no means assured of a seat - and, as I said, that is by giving him the benefit of every bit of doubt about those figures. For instance, if you gives Simons and O'Malley 2% of the vote each, (which is hardly earth-shattering), Ganley is then left with just 30 of 250 voters in NW, which is 12%, and definitely no seat.

So the poll tells us nothing we don't already know - Ganley has an outside chance, but not a great chance, of a seat.