Waterford Election 2011

AdMMM

For an outsider, you cannot appreciate just how difficult it is to predict this constituency. The last opinion poll we had for Waterford was the 2007 election and much has changed since then. First, I’m going to come out and say that Fianna Fail have an almighty struggle on their hands if they want to hang onto a seat. Their city vote has bombed and all reports say that FG are sweeping up the county vote, especially among the likes of Fishermen who think that Fianna Fail have left them down. I simply cannot identify where Brendan Keneally’s vote will come from. Therefore I’m going to say that Brendan Keneally is going to lose the FF seat in Waterford.

This means that for the first time since the foundation of the state, Waterford has the opportunity to get rid of FF and pass the baton over to another group. We may not know how competent that FG will be as the primary party in whatever Government is formed but we know for sure that they will elect two deputies while all others will be chomping at the bit through all the counts, so to speak.
I could talk about the various scenarios that may play out in this constituency for days on end. However, I’m only going to talk about one.

My scenario makes a few assumptions and is based on grouping candidates together. I think that Seamus Ryan and Ciara Conway will split the Labour almost down the middle. I think that David Cullinane and John Halligan will also split their vote and if I’m to go with my gut instinct, I’m going to say that they will poll better than the two Labour candidates combined.

What is really vital to these considerations is how Brendan Keneally will fare. In the scenario that I’m examining he polls well enough but falls behind because he is toxic for transfers. Quite simple, he has bombed in the city. He may have been received well by a planted crowd in the Granville Hotel but the rest of the real world knows that his performance left a lot to be desired.
I think that Labour truly made a mess of Waterford. Had they run one candidate, they could have rested on their laurels a long time ago. However, running a 2 candidate ticket for the first time since the 60s is an irresponsible strategy and sees them having to work a lot harder for their votes than they should. Outside of their own constituencies, the Labour candidates are unknown to each other and makes me question whether their vote management strategy can secure a 60% transfer rate from candidate to candidate. If they can’t, it will shift the dynamics toward 2FG, 1 SF, 1 IND but surely an established party can’t mess things up that much?

My gut instinct says that Labour will hang on for that third seat leaving an epic battle for the final seat. I’d love to exclude FF but on the basis of their one candidate strategy, they’ll always be knocking! The final seat in Waterford will go to whoever benefits most from the transfers of the eliminated Independents through the process. In a grand scheme of things, I think Halligan will benefit the most from the transfers but if he’s to win a seat, he will have to count on the elimination of a Labour candidate to leap frog him above David Cullinane if he wants to become a TD.
Prediction:
1: John Deasy
2: Paudie Coffey
3: Seamus Ryan
4: John Halligan / David Cullinane
Seat 4 is too close to call given that 30% of the previous Martin Cullen vote could go anywhere!

I know there's a lot of assumptions made there and I really would have loved to have gone into more detail but time simply doesn't allow for it. My predictions are based on FF bombing in the city and failing to convince enough of the County voters. This leaves the final seat wide open. Given that the last opinion poll in Waterford was effectively the 2007 elections, I don't believe that we can rely on opinion polls. We will see numerous recounts in the waterford constituency. Despite running a suicidal campaign, Labour should be safe. Brendan Keneally will poll well initially but will be swallowed up when transfers really come into play. I simply can't call it. I really want to. But I can't.

What I will say is that David is great value at 2/1 on Paddy Power. I'd say lump on, block your ears and close yours eyes. Waterford is going to be a rollercoaster ride!

nkay1985

I agree with pretty much all of that Adam.

I'm going to go a step further and try to guess the candidates' first preference votes. This is purely based on my own guesses so no doubt they'll be out but sure it's all a bit of fun.

To make the numbers easy to deal with, I'm assuming a total valid poll of 50,000. That makes the quota 10,000.

Deasy to top the poll with 11,000 votes.
Coffey to poll second with 9,100.
Kenneally to get 6,800.
Cullinane to get 5,375.
Halligan - 4,975.
Ryan - 4,800.
Ciara Conway - 4,200.

After this point it's serious guesswork but let's just say:
Higgins 800
Collery 800
Tobin 650
Joe Conway 640
Power 500
Nutty 200
Waters 200
Kiersey 40


Bullet points are:
1. Deasy
2. Coffey
3. Ryan
4. Halligan/Cullinane

Deasy elected on the first count.
Coffey to reach the quota a few eliminations into the count.
Ryan to outpoll Ciara Conway and leapfrog Halligan, Cullinane and Kenneally with her transfers.
Either Halligan or Cullinane to be eliminated after Conway, giving the other the boost needed to get past Kenneally and transferring to Ryan to keep him in the third seat. If I had to make a guess, I'd go Halligan but 2/1 is a great price on Cullinane.

nkay1985

Long-winded reasoning for those who are interested:

First up is Deasy's surplus. It should very nearly elect Coffey if it doesn't do the whole job. Because of this, the surplus will have very little effect on the battle for the third and fourth seats.

No idea where Kiersey or Waters' votes go. I would guess everywhere. Similar for Nutty, with a larger percentage to Power as Nutty is an ex-Green. Power should transfer evenly enough but more within the city than county. Conway should transfer to any remaining independents and maybe to Ciara Conway because of her Tramore connections.

At this stage, 1580 votes will have been available to transfer. I think most of these will have transferred because anyone voting for these candidates won't expect them to be elected so will have second preferences. Say 1,450 have transferred. All this time, everyone is picking up bits and pieces except for Kenneally, who won't be taking many at all.

Coffey should be elected by now. Expect all the candidates in the battle below Kenneally to have pulled back in and around 100 votes. Ciara Conway and Halligan more than Ryan and Cullinane maybe. Joe Tobin's votes will go mostly to Halligan, then to Cullinane, then Ryan. Once Collery and Higgins are eliminated, Halligan should have gained on Cullinane by a few hundred votes. They could well be level or John gone ahead!

I think Ciara Conway will still be behind Ryan and will be the first big elimination. We're talking big numbers now. Their vote management won't be excellent because of the short campaigns, the candidates' relative profiles etc. The only thing going for them is the same party logo on the paper. This will be enough. I think she'll have around 4,800 at this point. 50% should go to Ryan. This 2,400 on top of his own 5,200 puts him onto 8,000 and into the third seat.

It's the destination of the remaining 2,400 that play a massive part. Some will be non-transferrable with no remaining county candidate. Say 1,000. The 1,400 will go between Halligan, being a left-leaning independent and Cullinane, from a left wing party. It's a toss-up here. Halligan, as an independent, should have picked up ground on Cullinane in the previous eliminations. If he's ahead of him going into Conway's elimination, he'll stay ahead. If not, it'll be very close and possibly be our first recount. I think both will still be behind Kenneally and whichever one is eliminated should give the other the push they need to get past him and take the fourth seat.

nkay1985

So who else fancies a go at predicting the numbers? Bit of friendly competition!

Or do you all want to predict how wrong I'll be?

How disappointing will it be if Kenneally does hang on and all we end up doing is replacing one FF TD with a FG TD. Wouldn't be very radical now, would it!

ziedth

I won't go into clear numbers but my top 6:

Deasy
Coffee (Both within a few hundred of each other but clear 1-2)
Cullinane (6-7k)
Halligan ( 5k Beating Keneally by a nose)
Keneally
Ryan & Conway (Split their vote at 4k each)

I have no reason or way to think it'll go this way but I'm just going on the Lab split vote and Halligan doing very well on transfers. Wishful thinking in my part maybe.

wfman

What would be interesting is if Ciara Conway is ahead of Ryan.If Ryan was eliminated before Halligan,Cullinane and Kenneally id say it would be game over Kenneally:)

Gardner

wfman wrote: »

What would be interesting is if Ciara Conway is ahead of Ryan.If Ryan was eliminated before Halligan,Cullinane and Kenneally id say it would be game over Kenneally:)

that would be the business! fingers crossed!

jmcc

wfman wrote: »

What would be interesting is if Ciara Conway is ahead of Ryan.If Ryan was eliminated before Halligan,Cullinane and Kenneally id say it would be game over Kenneally:)

Yep there is always a chance that the brothers in the unions might be outvoted by the sisters. But then the problem for Labour and its general perception is that far from the Seventies being Socialist, the Socialists are now seventy. This could give Ciara Conway some votes. However the question for Labour voters is where the Waterford city block of votes goes. The RTE interview a few days ago was interesting in that it was Conway rather than Ryan who was interviewed. Still though, I think that Keneally will have a very hard time surviving and there may be no safe Seanad seat this time around as too many FFers will have lost their seats. Worst case for FF: under 20. Best case: 42. The really interesting change in this GE should be if Cullinane's vote increases due to a radicalisation of the younger vote.

Regards...jmcc

ziedth

I honestly think Cullinane is going to surprise a few people. Even though my prediction for him might be optimistic I think at the very least he'll be up for the fourth seat till the end.

BlaasForRafa

ziedth wrote: »

I honestly think Cullinane is going to surprise a few people. Even though my prediction for him might be optimistic I think at the very least he'll be up for the fourth seat till the end.

I don't think it would be that much of a surprise to see Cullinane get the fourth seat. I'm not mad on sinn fein because of their past and their current fantasy-land economic policies but he'd at least be preferable to that useless lump kenneally.

comeraghs

I´d be surprised if Coffey doesn´t do better than Deasy.

I´m hoping that it´ll be 1 Collery, 2 Halligan, 3 Coffey 4 Deasy

but it´ll probably 1 Coffey, 2 Deasy, 3 Cullinane 4 Halligan with the two candidate Labour strategy backfiring.

I´ll be very very very disappointed if Kennelly gets in.

mike65

The only thing I would bet on at this point is both FG being elected, the other two seats will be very closely argued - Halligan, Cullinane, Keneally and one of the Labour pair will have to be very patient I expect.

Make A Stand

In 2007 FF polled over 22,000 first preference votes.
The outcome of the election in Waterford depends where those votes go.
Because FF are seen as transfer toxic ( what a great phrase) Kenneally will need to get in my estimation 7000-8000 first preference to have a hope.
Will the FF in Waterford collapse by that amount.....hopefully

In reality the 4 seats here are between 7 candidates and after the first preferences the next really serious issue is which of the 'big' candidates will be eliminated.

My predicition as of now is

Coffey, Deasy, Ryan and Halligan/Culliane.

TBH I don't cate whether it's Halligan or Culliane.....as long as its not Kenneally:pac:

nkay1985

wfman wrote: »

What would be interesting is if Ciara Conway is ahead of Ryan.If Ryan was eliminated before Halligan,Cullinane and Kenneally id say it would be game over Kenneally:)

After I had written that gargantuan post, I was going to go on and talk about this one too but thought better of it! If it does happen, I think less votes would transfer to Conway than the other way around because Halligan and Cullinane should get a fair bit. Kenneally would almost certainly be gone then.

dlofnep

Voted!

wellboytoo

Won't go into the detail as above, but would predict Justin Colery as a dark horse and may surprise everyone with his first preference votes, I would predict well over two thousand.

dlofnep

I think Justin will do well enough. Seems like a nice lad. Doubt he will get in though. Between now and the next GE, it will be a good chance for him to build his profile.

wfman

nkay1985 wrote: »

After I had written that gargantuan post, I was going to go on and talk about this one too but thought better of it! If it does happen, I think less votes would transfer to Conway than the other way around because Halligan and Cullinane should get a fair bit. Kenneally would almost certainly be gone then.

Labour could lose the seat and only have themselfs to blame.
You had labour cllr's in dungarvan out on the canvas for Ryan and a waterford city cllr out for Conway.
Neither candidate asked for the number 2 vote for their running mate unless you asked them.
Labour had a chance to run a solid campaign to manage votes as best as possible between a city and a county candidate.
It will be a bit late to show a united front if they both leave the count eliminated.
some people say it was foolish for labour to run two candidates,i think the candidates were foolish.

wfman

dlofnep wrote: »

I think Justin will do well enough. Seems like a nice lad. Doubt he will get in though. Between now and the next GE, it will be a good chance for him to build his profile.

Id say after saturday you'll never hear from justin at an election again.

danjo-xx

Just back from Barrack St PS, dead quiet there, same all day apparently

Justin Collery

wfman wrote: »

Id say after saturday you'll never hear from justin at an election again.

Not so

Professey Chin

danjo-xx wrote: »

Just back from Barrack St PS, dead quiet there, same all day apparently

People will only be starting to finish work now

ziedth

Busy enough out in Bunmahon apparently but you wouldn't exactly be talkng thousands of people at 100% turnout.

I honestly think Lab have pissed away a seat with running two.

old gregg

At the end of the day I'd not have a notion as to the outcome or who screwed up strategy. This was the first election where I involved myself more than just thinking quietly and then voting.

It's been liberating to attend a political debate for the first time in my life (out with the good folks who put together the WIT event and the candidates who attended), interact with peeps here, arrive at a voting choice and then change my Num 1 & 2 vote around an hour before voting as a result of chatting with my son who was voting today for the first time.

Cheers to all who contributed to this thread and helped make this an election I'll remember fondly. Have a good weekend, and in the words of that great political thinker Frank Gallagher: "can I have a pint and 2 E's please Karen"

jonnyfingers

Voted at 7am in the Mercy today and there was a nice few people already in there. Good to see.

AdMMM

Was absolutely twisted when I wrote those predictions last night, so I'm sorry if it was hard to understand! Niall pretty much expanded on my views perfectly. Would doubt the lesser known candidates will be eliminated in quite that order, but the business end is pretty much spot on.

I imagine that accidentally spoilt votes will be up because of the layout of the ballot paper. With so many Non-party candidates, there's a lot of blank boxes to the left of the page and I predict many people will be putting their preferences in the wrong box! Would have made far more sense to blacken out the box for non-party candidates.

The rain could also have an effect on the overall turnout.

Deise Tom

wellboytoo wrote: »

Won't go into the detail as above, but would predict Justin Colery as a dark horse and may surprise everyone with his first preference votes, I would predict well over two thousand.

Bookies (Paddy Power) dont give him much of a chance at 33/1 along with Tobin and Nutty. They are behind Deady 1/20, Coffey 1/12, Ryan 4/11, Keneally 4/6, Halligan 6/4, C Conway 13/8, Culliane 2/1, J Conway 20/1 and Higgins 25/1. Kiersey, Waters and Power are all 50/1

Deise Tom

dlofnep wrote: »

I think Justin will do well enough. Seems like a nice lad. Doubt he will get in though. Between now and the next GE, it will be a good chance for him to build his profile.

Might not be too far off. FG if memory serves me right were never in a governement that lasted the full five years. There could always be a first i guess, but i doubt it will be this time.

Deise Tom

wfman wrote: »

Labour could lose the seat and only have themselfs to blame.
You had labour cllr's in dungarvan out on the canvas for Ryan and a waterford city cllr out for Conway.
Neither candidate asked for the number 2 vote for their running mate unless you asked them.
Labour had a chance to run a solid campaign to manage votes as best as possible between a city and a county candidate.
It will be a bit late to show a united front if they both leave the count eliminated.
some people say it was foolish for labour to run two candidates,i think the candidates were foolish.

Seamus Ryan and another fellow were in Dungarvan two weeks ago, under the WLR studios. The place was not over busy at the time and they picked and choosed who they would approach to ask for a vote. You would think they would go after as many as was possible.

stickysten

ziedth wrote: »

Must say I'm the opposite, I'd have allot of time for Cullinane but I'm no lover of SF. I'd agree with allot of FG's Ideas as a party but I'm no lover of Enda Kenny.

totally agree with ya on that one, i had john deasy at my door, very confident & talked a lot of sense but...i cant stand kenny i think hes too weak to run the country jesus even his own party wanted him out last year, so with that i couldnt vote for deasy cause in the end its a vote for kenny & kenny cant stand deasy anyway so i dont think he,ll get a prominent position in the government if/when FG get in, can ya imagine kenny going to the imf/eu regarding the bailout?? theyd throw him out the door like a bouncer in muldoons on a sat nite!!