General Election 2010: Post Budget.

[adamirer]

From 19 to 27 to 40 seat losses, these predictions are all over the shop. My view is that you cannot defy the logic of the first preference votes, especially a party which is so transfer-averse as FF.

If FF get less than 25% of first preferences, they will get less than 25% of the seats i.e. a loss of at least 30 seats.

Nothing I've read on this thread has challenged that logic and no amount of constituency magic can change it. FF's vote share in the locals did get an extra couple of points because of their candidates but that is the size of it. But that doesn't change the reality that their share of Dail seats will not exceed their actual share of the vote at the next general election.

Its not constituency magic. FF had a 40% 1st prefs in 2007. In some areas (offaly and others) that was 55% and others it was 25%. They can bomb in urbans areas and lose half their seats in Dublin, but lose only 1/5th in rurals...


Thats why the Indos lazy one size fits all method is rubbish. Locals are not a good indicator of a GE performance. Tribune and Indo articles are not predictions. It's just a slow news week. But sure it's all guesswork. Most people last time thought SF would be up to 8 seats , many guessing 10, and FF to drop to 65-70.. and look what happened.. things change.

Its a politics website, we speculate about where parties are most vulnerable and debate if X happens, what the effect on Y would be. If you don't like that, well then, you're probably on the wrong site!!!!

[Lefournier]

Its a politics website, we speculate about where parties are most vulnerable and debate if X happens, what the effect on Y would be. If you don't like that, well then, you're probably on the wrong site!!!

Huh?? Did I object to debate?

Its not constituency magic. FF had a 40% 1st prefs in 2007. In some areas (offaly and others) that was 55% and others it was 25%. They can bomb in urbans areas and lose half their seats in Dublin, but lose only 1/5th in rurals...

There will be striking differences between urban and rural areas and there could be a PR-STV boost for FF if its rural vote exceeds 35% but, if we are assuming an overall vote share of 25%, that would assume a disastrous performance in the urban areas (not just Dublin) of less than 10%. which will mean losing all urban seats (even in a 5 seater, 10% is not enough without transfers)

Kerrynorth gives a more realistic estimate on another thread here:

http://www.politics.ie/elections/767...stituency.html

[adamirer]

We'll see in time, no prob with Kerry's thinking, just dont see FF doing that badly and RTE's exit poll was utter garbage, see their dublin poll.

[Lefournier]

RTE's exit poll was utter garbage, see their dublin poll.

RTE's exit poll was very accurate on most measures and especially about FF's performance, but I grant you that they got FG/Lab. wrong in the Dublin Euros. This poll has the largest sample of any recent opinion poll and I would put a lot of weight on its findings. For example FF should be very worried that 24% of their voters in 2007 went to FG this time.