TW0-THIRDS OF VOTERS SUPPORTING MICHAEL D
Poll shows Higgins on staggering 65%, with Sean Gallagher and SF on 11% each
MICHAEL D Higgins has a crushing lead in the race to be President, according to an exclusive Irish Daily Mail/Ireland Thinks poll.
A staggering 65% of voters say they would give the incumbent their vote – putting him 54 points ahead of his nearest rivals. Sinn Féin’s as-yet-unnamed candidate is on just 11%, as is Sean Gallagher, who lost the 2011 Áras race after a last-minute collapse in support. Mr Gallagher will today finally announce if he is standing this time or not; however, today’s poll suggests he would have a mountain to climb to defeat the current President.
Mr Higgins is favourite among every age group and across supporters of every party except Sinn
Féin, the survey suggests.
With polling day yesterday announced for Friday, October 26, the poll will be sobering news for all would-be Independent candidates.
Dragons’ Den entrepreneur Gavin Duffy has only 10% support, with just 3% opting for Senator Joan Freeman, founder of anti-suicide charity, Pieta House.
The Mail polled opinions on these five candidacies, considered to be the most likely to achieve enough support to be nominated.
It was revealed yesterday that Mr Gallagher will issue a statement about his intentions this morning, with a small possibility that he could yet pull back from participation.
While Mr Gallagher’s actions to date suggest he may be preparing for another tilt at the Áras, he has thus far refused to commit either way.
Given the collapse in his vote in 2011, when the former Dragons’ Den businessman was at one point favourite and the fact that he no longer has the vehicle of a popular RTÉ television programme to give him a public profile, many analysts were already wondering how Mr Gallagher was planning to unseat the popular incumbent.
The poll, carried out for the Mail by Ireland Thinks, shows they Mr Gallagher polls slightly better with men than with women.
The polling firm interviewed a random sample of 942 adults aged over 18 by telephone this month, ending last Friday. The data was weighted to the profile of all adults, based on the age, gender, education and geographical spread of the population.
The figures suggest President Higgins is on course to secure a second seven-year term. The challenge for his rivals will be to find a way to do him electoral damage while simultaneously handicapping their rivals.
Even if the Dublin Castle count were to go to a second count, the transfers of eliminated candidates would elect Mr Higgins, the poll suggests.
The poll shows that more than half of Sinn Féin second preferences (54%) would go to the President; 56% of Mr Duffy’s first preferences would also go to the President, as would 58% of Mr Gallagher’s.
And despite it being the centenary of women winning the right to vote in Ireland, there is no evidence that women would be more likely to vote for a woman candidate.
The statistics show that women are even more inclined to vote for Mr Higgins than men, at 68% to 63%. That may be bad news for Senator Freeman but also Gemma O’Doherty, Sarah Louise Mulligan and Maria Goretti Moylan, who are all seeking to get on the ballot.
Some 4% of women voters support Senator Freeman, compared to 2% of men.
Mr Higgins, who is 77 and would be 84 by the end of a second term in office, is also the favourite among all age groups.
Labour voters, unsurprisingly, are most likely to vote for Mr Higgins, who is a former Labour TD and minister. He would take 90% of votes from his former party’s base.
Voters of Fine Gael, which has never won the Presidency with a candidate and which is sitting this election out, would unanimously give Mr Higgins their
No.1 vote (71%), while 60% of Fianna Fáil backers would do the same. Of the selfidentifying Sinn Féin base, 46% say they’ll vote for whoever the republican party candidate is, while 45% will opt to back Mr Higgins instead.
With Sinn Féin widely seen as effectively pitching for second place in the race, it is this split in Sinn Féin’s own support that points to Mr Higgins triumphing in the Áras race.
However, students of presidential elections will know that anything can happen – as, for example, in the Áras race of 1990, when hot favourite Brian Lenihan also saw his campaign collapse.
Anyone seeking to secure candidacy for the election must do so by September 26.
Favourite among all age groups