Sinn Féin surge continues as it hits new record high in latest Red C poll

Sinn Féin has reached another record level of support in the latest Business Post/Red C poll.

Mary Lou McDonald’s party, which has been buoyed by its recent performance in the Northern Assembly election, is up by two points to 36 per cent.

This is more than the combined 35 per cent support for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, which is another first for Sinn Féin in a Red C poll.

Fine Gael had halted six months of slippage in last month’s poll by going up one point to 21 per cent. But the party is back down to 20 per cent on this occasion, which is a similar level of support to what it achieved in Election 2020.

Fianna Fáil has dropped by a point to 15 per cent. There is a relative calm in the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party at the moment because its support has been somewhat stable after much lower ratings last year. However, there will still be disappointment that the party has slipped from 17 per cent last February to 15 per cent now.

Sinn Féin is winning the battle on the opposition side, squeezing the support of smaller parties like Labour and the Social Democrats. The support level for Independent TDs, however, has remained at 11 per cent for the fifth Red C poll in a row while the Green Party is up one point to 5 per cent.

There is some bad news for Ivana Bacik, the new Labour leader, as her party is down by one point to 3 per cent. The Social Democrats, who recently put the government under sustained pressure over the ownership structure for the new National Maternity Hospital, are also down in this poll by one point to 4 per cent.

There is no change for People Before Profit-Solidarity, which remains on 3 per cent, and Aontú is also unchanged on 2 per cent.

To read a full analysis of the poll results by Michael Brennan, click here. Further news and analysis will follow on Sunday, including a report on a series of poll questions on housing.

Red C interviewed a random sample of 1,002 adults aged 18+ online between Friday May 20 and Wednesday May 25 2022. An online approach was used, among our bespoke online panel Red C Live. Interviews are conducted across the country and the results weighted to the profile of all adults. Panelists were chosen at random to complete the poll, with quotas set and weights allocated on age, gender, class, region, education level & working status to ensure a nationally representative sample. A further past vote quota and weight is included that looks at how people on our panel voted at the last election (gathered at the time) and controls this to ensure it matches the actual results. In all respects the poll was completed to the opinion polling guidelines set out by both ESOMAR and AIMRO.