Irish General Election (February 8th 2020)

[Cassius]

Time for a wild shot in the dark prediction re vote shares and seat count.

FF: 45-60: 26%
SF: 25-35: 20%
FG: 25-35: 20%
Independent/Other: 10-15: 16%
Green: 5-10: 7%
Labour: 0-5: 5%
PBP et al: 0-5: 3%
Social Democrats: 0-5: 2%

[Democratic Hawk]

https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2020/0206/1113533-pick-a-political-winner-professors-psychics-and-others-weigh-in/

And the octopus may well prove the smartest of the lot.

[jaymichaud]

Would a SF/Labor/Green/PBP coalition really work?

[PSOL]

https://twitter.com/pb4p/status/1225826428656193538?s=19

[Silent Hunter]

No surprise there from anyone who follows him on Twitter.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Is there likely to be an exit poll?

[bigic]

Yes, after the polls close.

[Pouring Rain and Blairing Music]

The Irish Times will be conducting an exit poll. They also note that counting does not start until 9 AM on Sunday. (4 AM Eastern, 1 AM Pacific).

[urutzizu]

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1226266407882698757

Three way tie!

[Silent Hunter]

Wow, three way tie on first preferences...

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Sinn Féin!

[mileslunn]

Looks like Varadkar may get to remain taoiseach of Ireland although I suspect it will take a while perhaps a few months before we know what the shape of the next government is.  Also possible like Spain and Israel, this results in another election.  Either way, I suspect that either Fine Gael or Fianna Fail will form government, but who will be part of it will be interesting.  Sinn Fein due to limited # of candidates and both main parties promising not to go into coalition with them likely won't and indeed the fear Sinn Fein will run a full slate next time around is probably why some agreement will be formed.  If Sinn Fein ran a full slate, there is a chance they might be able to form a left wing coalition with Greens + Labour + Social Democrats + People before Profit as exit poll puts those parties combined at 41% but this time around pretty sure they will fall short so that won't be viable.  Although good chance coalition includes one of the left wing parties, most likely Greens.

[Democratic Hawk]

Lol

[jaymichaud]

What are the odds the unity government will remain?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Ayy lmao

[Tintrlvr]

Surprisingly strong for FG/weak for FF in the exit poll compared to pre-election polling. We'll see what the actual results look like. I don't recall historically how good exit polls are in Ireland; do they have a good reputation? I think this would result in FF largest party as FG, having been in government for a while, will probably have worse transfers, but very uncertain of course. (SF will likely struggle with transfers as usual and should be 5-10 seats short of FG/FF on a tied first vote.)

[mileslunn]

Surprisingly strong for FG/weak for FF in the exit poll compared to pre-election polling. We'll see what the actual results look like. I don't recall historically how good exit polls are in Ireland; do they have a good reputation? I think this would result in FF largest party as FG, having been in government for a while, will probably have worse transfers, but very uncertain of course. (SF will likely struggle with transfers as usual and should be 5-10 seats short of FG/FF on a tied first vote.)

They are quite good, much like UK, pre-election polling known for misses although due to STV system first preference polling can sometimes be deceiving unlike in FTFP.  Don't know if Ireland has had a big miss, but with UK last time that happened was 1992 but with modern technology that could be avoided as I believe there was a 4 hour delay so those who voted after work weren't included in exit poll like they are now and that group voted heavily Tory in 1992 while morning and day voters more favourable to Labour.

[Helsinkian]

Sinn Féin!

Nationalists winning throughout Europe!

[CumbrianLefty]

If it transpires, almost the ultimate banter result

[DL]

Do they bother making a seat distribution estimate from the exit poll or do we just assume that it will be proportional?

[BP🌹]

How accurate are Irish exit polls usually?

[urutzizu]

Do they bother making a seat distribution estimate from the exit poll or do we just assume that it will be proportional?

Not proportional. Sinn Féins percentage of support will not be reflected in the number of seats, purely because it has not run enough candidates. Running only 42 candidates has knee capped them. In order to match that they need to have a conversion rate of 83%.

On these figures, if it had run a second candidate in Dublin South Central, Dublin Central, Dublin South West, Dublin Bay North and Cork North Central etc. it would have likely taken a second seat there. Conventional Wisdom also suggests that SF is going to get screwed over due to the fact that they traditionally do net get 2nd preferences to the scale that the other ones do, although I am actually sceptical whether that is going to play out this time, at least not to the same extent it did previously. (M.L. McDonald is not Gerry Adams and whatever toxic image SF had among the older electorate, FF and to a lesser extent FG now have among the young.)
On the other hand FF/FG have done their absolute best to piss away any potential SF transfers, so expect the smaller left parties to do better then the 1pf voteshare might imply.

[Oryxslayer]

Do they bother making a seat distribution estimate from the exit poll or do we just assume that it will be proportional?

STV doesn't make things truly proportional, it just increases the efficiency of one's vote. FF and FF will do better than the 22% in seats, since they were the big two going in, and they ran the most candidates.

[DL]

I assume that in a constituency where SF could have elected a second MP the “leftover” SF votes go to whoever was their second preference.,,who do SF voters tend to preference? Greens? Labour? Independents?