Irish vote close as exit poll puts PM Simon Harris, Sinn Fein level

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris’s Fine Gael party is locked in a virtual dead heat with Sinn Fein in the general election, suggesting his decision to go to the country early didn’t yield the advantage he predicted.

Fine Gael won 21% of first-preference votes in Friday’s election, the official exit poll showed. Sinn Fein won 21.1%, while Fianna Fail, Fine Gael’s coalition partner, was on 19.5.%. The poll had a margin of error of 1.4%.

Even so, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail going back into government is still the most likely outcome — both have ruled out working with Sinn Fein. But a tight race is not ideal for Harris, especially if he emerges with less support than his rival.

The premier called the vote, which wasn’t expected to be held until March, after his party surged in opinion polls since he became Taoiseach in April. That, plus a large giveaway budget in October and a slide in support for Sinn Fein, made it seem like the optimal time to seek a new mandate.

Whoever forms the next government will do so at an opportune time, with Ireland enjoying a budget surplus that is rare among European nations and tax receipts expected to soar further. Management of Ireland’s billions has been front and center in the campaign, with parties competing on promises to fix infrastructure and end a housing shortage.

But Harris’s election campaign was beset with slip-ups, the worst a viral video of him walking away from a disability care worker and dismissing her view that the government wasn’t doing enough. Harris later apologized.

Based on the exit poll, Fine Gael’s support has slumped since an Irish Times survey in September — before the election announcement — showed Fine Gael at 27%, Sinn Fein at 20% and Fianna Fail at 19%.

“If the 21% is accurate, it is still lower than what Fine Gael were running pre the calling of the election,” Gail McElroy, political science professor at Trinity College Dublin, told RTE. “They might have hoped at one stage having 24, 25% — so it is probably a little depressed.”

For Mary Lou McDonald’s Sinn Fein, the exit poll points to a slight recovery after a turbulent few months.

At the start of the year, Sinn Fein had appeared on course to form a government for the first time since Ireland gained independence in 1922. But the left-leaning party struggled to adapt to growing concerns about immigration, leading to a lackluster performance in local and European elections in June.

Matt Carthy, Sinn Fein’s director of elections, said it was a “phenomenal result” for the party, citing the improvement in vote share compared with the summer.

But forming a government looks all but impossible for Sinn Fein even if it wins the popular vote. Without the option of a coalition with Fine Gael or Fianna Fail, there is no clear route to power.

Instead, a repeat of 2020 — when Sinn Fein narrowly won the popular vote but Fine Gael and Fianna Fail formed the government — still looks likely.

Even out of power, Sinn Fein’s rise is reshaping Irish politics after Fianna Fail and Fine Gael led every government since the state was formed 100 years ago.

“The wider picture here is that we’re seeing further fragmentation within the Irish political system, across many smaller parties and indeed with many independents,” Jack Chambers, finance minister and Fianna Fail’s deputy leader, told RTE after the exit poll was released.

In Ireland’s electoral system, a version of proportional representation with voters ranking preferred candidates, parties need to win 88 seats for a majority in the 174-seat Dail, or parliament. But no party fielded enough candidates to reach that threshold on its own.

Counting begins at 9 a.m. on Saturday, with a clearer picture likely to emerge by the afternoon or later. Forming a coalition could take weeks of negotiations, though the there is an added incentive to have a government in place when Donald Trump takes office in the U.S.

The exit poll suggests that if Fine Gael and Fianna Fail were to form a coalition, they would need more than one smaller party to go into government. It’s not clear who they would bring in. Their coalition partner last time, the Greens, are expected to have fewer seats this time.

For the two incumbent centrist parties, the support of a smaller center-left group would be ideal. According to the exit poll, the Social Democrats are on 5.8%, Labour at 5% and the Green Party at 4%.

The exit poll is based on more than 5,000 interviews conducted immediately after people voted at polling stations across 43 constituencies across the country.

_____