Election 2024: TV bust up and SF down but not out – here’s what went on in week one of campaigning

Blink and you may have missed it, but we are one-third of the way through the general election campaign. And what difference has it made? Well, if you go only on the polling numbers, not a huge amount – granted our poll was in the field in the first half of the week, but if voters are relatively unmoved by what they’ve seen so far, who could blame them? It’s been a stuttering start to the campaign, with only a few “cut through” moments as parties traded policies and jibes in an effort to woo the electorate. But what went on in the first week of campaigning, and why might it matter in the final reckoning?
The old fable of the frog and the scorpion dictates that the latter will always act in his nature even if it’s against his interests. Well, Michael O’Leary’s intervention at Peter Burke’s campaign launch, cutting the legs from under teachers, was certainly in his nature, and it was not in Burke’s, nor Fine Gael’s interests. The comments dominated coverage in the first half of the week, but while Fine Gael was down in our poll on Friday, it was within the margin of error, so it’s tricky to attribute any big impact to the Ryanair chief executive’s characteristic sally-forth against teachers. Nonetheless, expect it to resurface as competition intensifies and the debates close in.
The Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael shadow boxing has been the main feature of the campaign trail so far, peaking in a bad tempered and shouty exchange on Virgin Media’s Tonight Show between Fianna Fáil’s Jack Chambers and Fine Gael’s Hildegarde Naughton – nobody came out of this especially well, except maybe the Opposition panel members. Despite Fianna Fáil calls for a detente, it looks like there are miles to go yet before the two settle down to at least imply a less disunited front on the eve of an election. They scrapped over drugs policy, VAT, housing, justice and whatever else was going, as they seek to decouple for the electorate. But there are risks here too – expect Sinn Féin to seek to capitalise if the two large Coalition parties end up looking more like warring tribes as the campaign wears on.
The VMTV row was preceded by a spat between Chambers and his budgetary bosom buddy Paschal Donohoe, taking pot shots at each others’ economic credibility. Being a steady hand on the tiller looked like it was going to be important, especially in the wake of rising threats of an economic shock following Donald Trump’s reelection to the White House. However, our polling suggests that only six per cent of people will be thinking primarily about the economy when they go to the polls, compared to 30 per cent who will focus on the cost of living. The economy, the fiscal stance of this and the next government, as well as structural reform and cost of living measures are all intimately tied in with one another, but that common ground doesn’t seem to be to the forefront in voters’ minds. There may be a risk for Fine Gael in campaigning on the strength of the economy while the electorate’s day-to-day experience of living in that economy is still so strained – anything to be said for another round of Keep the Recovery Going?
For the Government parties at least, the fact Sinn Féin are down but not out is the biggest fly in the ointment. Mary Lou McDonald seems to have a pep in her step – that will come as welcome news to Sinn Féin, who enter the election battered but unbowed. The poll was middling for them – down a point, which hardly suggests a head of steam, but also indicates the bleeding may have stopped. Candidates report a decent engagement on the doors – not where they want to be yet, but not out of it by a long shot. Certainly, it’s all still to play for.
Winners: Independents were up four points in our poll – the traditional home of voters when they feel like visiting a plague on all parties’ political houses. If this trend continues, it could be a very messy Dáil altogether after the election, and if voters plump for Independents that can coalesce into groups (Independent Ireland or other), would larger parties have to give them their shot in government formation talks over the left leaning parties, likely to make up the “other” chunk of the next Dáil? Certainly Simon Harris seemed a bit spooked by the prospect, warning farmers not to vote Independent earlier in the week.
Losers: Whoever was responsible for affixing the sign to Simon Harris’ rostrum on Wednesday.
Catch up on bellwether constituencies here.
Polling from Friday and Saturday can be found here.
For GE24 the Election Daily podcast is, well, daily. Here, Pat Leahy talks about what the Independent surge in the polls could mean.
“If anybody is looking for the support of Independents to form a government, that will very much be a buyer’s market rather than a seller’s”.