The Irish Times view on Fine Gael’s poll surge: a big jump for Simon Harris

The Harris hop has skipped into a big jump for the Taoiseach, with a 17-point increase in his satisfaction rating since May. He is now easily the most popular party leader in the country, according to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos B&A poll.
Harris’s popularity has paid dividends for his party, with Fine Gael up to 27 per cent, a rise of eight points since February, when his predecessor Leo Varadkar was leader. It is the party’s best showing in more than three years.
The poll will fuel the already strong pressure on Harris from his parliamentary party and the wider Fine Gael organisation to call a general election as soon as feasible after the Budget on October 1st.
The result is also reasonably good as far as the other big coalition partner, Fianna Fáil, is concerned. The party has slipped one point to 19 per cent after a consistent showing of 20 per cent in the last three polls, but the change is well within the margin of error and indicates that Fianna Fáil can reasonably aim to win 20 per cent or more of the vote in the election.
The icing on the cake for the Coalition is that the Greens have improved to 5 per cent and, with almost double that level of support in Dublin, have a reasonable chance of retaining their seats in the capital, whatever about the rest of the country.
[ Pat Leahy: Poll findings will prompt renewed discussion about pre-Christmas election ]
[ Jump in support for Fine Gael puts it seven points ahead of Sinn Féin and eight points ahead of Fianna Fáil ]
The combined showing of 51 per cent for the Coalition parties gives the Government a healthy chance of winning another term, particularly if the three parties transfer to each other at the same rate as they did in the local and European elections in June.
The poll makes grim reading for the main Opposition party, Sinn Féin, and its leader, Mary Lou McDonald. The party has dropped three points to 20 per cent while McDonald has seen her satisfaction rating drop by six points since May.
Sinn Féin now finda itself at its lowest level in an Irish Times poll for almost seven years, having been far ahead of all other parties at 34 per cent just a year ago, when McDonald was the most popular party leader. The party doesn’t have a lot of time to turn things around, particularly if the election takes place before Christmas, but may take solace from the fact that it managed to do exactly that at the last general election in February 2020.
There is some good news for the Labour Party with its best poll result in six years and the fact that it is once again ahead of the Social Democrats and the other smaller left-wing parties. After their recent surge, Independents have dropped back one point to 16 per cent and, swhile they will certainly play an important role in the election, their presence in the next Dáil may prove not to be quite as significant as many had forecast.