The latest Ipsos/MRBI poll for The Irish Times confirms the trends we have seen in this campaign with Sinn Féin rising, and Fianna Fáil - and even more so Fine Gael - falling.
The graph shows these trends across the seven polls since the election was called, and shows the last pre-campaign poll, from B&A/Sunday Times as well.
The table below shows where his leaves the parties at present, with Sinn Féin marginally ahead of Fianna Fáil, and Fine Gael in third place. Greens lead the rest.
It is striking that the combined Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael vote is just 42%, the lowest we have seen at any point since polling began, and a long way below the figure of 65% seen in 2017. Sinn Féin's rise is also remarkable, well up on its polling before Christmas, and more than twice its local election vote last year, normally a good guide to the next election. And it is trending upwards.
The table includes estimates of how these votes would translate into seats. This methodology is explained here.
One unusual feature here is that Sinn Féin is fielding fewer candidates (42) than the number of seats it might be expected to win on its poll of polls vote. The prediction of 42 seats here is almost certainly too high, but if the party did win 25% of the vote the likelihood is that it would have enough votes to win two seats in several places where it is fielding only one candidate. This means that seats that Sinn Féin would have won will go to other parties. I have allocated those proportionally, although in practice these may be less likely to go to Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael than to others. The most important result is that the Fianna Fáil is expected to win 43 seats, well short of even the 50 seats won by Fine Gael in 2016. And with Fine Gael only on just 33, even a historic break with the past in the form of a Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael coalition might not provide enough seats for a majority.
With a week of campaigning between this latest poll and voting day (and rather longer in Tipperary) there is still a lot of time for change. If the wind is in Sinn Féin’s sails the likelihood is still that Fianna Fáil will emerge with the most seats. But with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael trending downwards even this is not certain.
However, the probability now is that Micheál Martin will be faced with the very tricky problem of constructing a government from the materials provided by the voters without even the benefit of being leader of the most popular party. This used to be what Fine Gael leaders did normally, but it would be a first for Fianna Fail.
