Fine Gael sees a moderate bounce as Harris takes reins

Simon Harris can choose which direction he might take his party, while SF is still seeing support wane, says Kevin Cunningham

With the emergence of putative leader Simon Harris, Fine Gael has been rewarded with a moderate bounce, which puts the party 5pc ahead of Fianna Fáil and 5pc behind Sinn Féin.

This is the party’s best position with respect to Fianna Fáil in just under a year. It is also the closest it has come to Sinn Féin in two-and-a-half years, principally the result of the continued problems facing Sinn Féin.

But is this bump merely the result of chance? It is less than the 2.8pc margin of error of this poll. Or is there any evidence that Harris has won Fine Gael some new voters?

Certainly, there are some positive headline figures, such as the 23pc who believe Harris will be more successful than Varadkar, and the 36pc who believe he has the qualities to be a successful Taoiseach — numbers in excess of the core Fine Gael vote.

We also have some limited evidence to suggest the increase for Fine Gael is related to support for Harris. We can look at how respondents answered in polls before this month to identify those who have switched allegiance this month. Looking specifically at those who previously supported other parties but today support Fine Gael, it is clear they demonstrate very strong support for Harris.

Of those who switched their preference to Fine Gael in this poll, 85pc said Yes to the question that asked whether Simon Harris has the experience and qualities needed to be a successful Taoiseach. Of course, this is a small sample, but it compares favourably against those who have continuously supported Fine Gael before and after the leadership change, for whom 71pc said Yes to the above question. These switchers tended to be Fianna Fáil supporters and tend to be female.

Many months ago, Fine Gael voters wanted Varadkar over Harris; they even wanted Coveney or Donohoe over Harris. This week, though, as parliamentary colleagues poured praise on his coming leadership, Fine Gael voters realigned their assessment of the man from Greystones.

So the party gained and lost voters, according to their assessment of him. But it is Harris’s Fine Gael now.

Among Fine Gael voters, he is more popular than Donohoe and Coveney. We asked respondents who they would have voted for had there been a contest between himself and his rivals, and 32pc of Fine Gael supporters opted for Harris, with 25pc each for Coveney and Donohoe.

Of course, Fine Gael may wonder what might have been had either Donohoe or Coveney been interested in the job. They remain more popular among the wider electorate, of whom just 16pc selected Harris overall. This choice is something that appears frequently in our open-ended text analysis.

One other nugget in this poll is the decline in support for Independents and increase in support for Aontú. This should not be too surprising. Aontú won 1.9pc at the last election and benefited from significant coverage during the referendum advocating for a No vote. The increase to 4pc might in retrospect have been foreseen.

It is also notable that support for the Social Democrats has dipped very slightly. Certainly, a small but significant number of voters has shifted in the direction of Harris’s Fine Gael. It remains to be seen if Harris will target more from this cohort.

There are still lots of floating voters on the right of the spectrum, yet Harris does find some support on the soft left too.

There is a clear choice for Harris in relation to which direction he decides to take Fine Gael. On this question, one thing is certain: ambivalence does not help. Ask Sinn Féin.

That party’s standing today, at 27pc, confirms again how far it has fallen in recent months as it ships support both left and right to the Social Democrats

and Independents. One thing we know for certain is that opinion poll boosts and opportunities tend to unravel relatively quickly, as we have seen with recent leadership changes.

So Harris will want to move quickly to outline what his Fine Gael looks like. This is ever more important as the electorate looks to summer’s local and European elections — and potentially towards a general election too.

What is also notable in this poll is the substantial number of voters looking for an immediate general election.

This is a position Sinn Féin repeatedly advocated last week, and it would seem that many of its supporters agree: a 16pc increase to 35pc want an election to take place immediately, while those who want the election to be pushed out to 2025 have also increased, by 5pc to 38pc.

The support or demand for an election is strongly correlated with one’s support for the Government.

Fine Gael both gained and lost voters after he took power, but it’s his party now

Kevin Cunningham is managing director of Ireland Thinks and lectures in politics at TU Dublin