61% OF PEOPLE who voted for Catherine Connolly believe that the President of Ireland should criticise the government when it is necessary to do so. 

That’s according to a polling day poll published by Ireland Thinks’ Kevin Cunningham on Saturday. 

The polling aimed not just to find out how people voted but also why they made the choices they did. 

The overall number of people polled was 4,500 and when the sample size was made more representative of the population, 2,433 people were included in the results. 

Voters were sent an SMS message with a link to the survey yesterday at 8pm, a time when they would know who they voted for or were going to vote for, but before they would have any indication of who was going to win the election (so they would not change their answers). 

Out of those who spoiled their ballot, 73% of people believe the president should criticise the government regularly compared to 10% who said the president should not.  

This is in contrast to 15% of Humphreys voters and 25% of Gavin voters who said yes when asked if this was the role of the president, while 38% answered no. 

A future left coalition

Elsewhere in the poll, 51% of people who voted for Catherine Connolly said they would vote for a left-alliance of Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, Labour and People Before Profit at the next general election. 

This is compared to only 3% of Humphreys and 6% of Gavin voters.

12% of people who spoiled their vote would be in favour of voting for a left-alliance in the next election, but 72% of those voters said they would be against such a coalition.

59% of Connolly’s voters said they were voting for their chosen candidates when casting their ballot, while 19% said they were voting for Connolly to vote AGAINST another candidate. 

39% of people voting for Heather Humphreys said they were doing so because they were voting AGAINST another candidate, while 64% of people who voted for Jim Gavin said the same. 

Only 9% of people who voted for Gavin said they were voting for their chosen candidate, while 10% said they were unsure. 

When did people decide who they would vote for?

Most voters polled knew who they were voting for before entering the booth. 

50% of Connolly voters, 43% of Humphreys voters, 30% of Gavin voters and 56% of those who spoiled their ballots decided who to vote for in the past three weeks. 

Only 13% of people who voted for Connolly decided who to vote for in the past few days/this week, compared to 22% for Humphreys, 34% for Gavin and 13% of those who spoiled their vote. 

When voters were asked to choose from a list of things they relied on to decide on their vote, Connolly voters said it was ‘integrity and honesty’, ‘competence’ and ‘communication skills’ that swayed them towards their chosen candidate. 

Heather Humphreys voters focused on ‘how the candidate represented Ireland abroad’ as well as ‘integrity and honestly’. 

Similarly, Jim Gavin’s voters were likely to focus on ‘how the candidate represented Ireland abroad’ and ‘values and ideology’. 

The poll also asked whether voters think Catherine Connolly would be similar to Michael D. Higgins as President. 

68% of Connolly voters said they think she would be, while 65% of Humphreys voters and 63% of Gavin voters said she would not be.

Of those who spoiled their ballot, 48% believed that Connolly would not be similar to Higgins as President while 35% believed she would be. 

According to Cunningham, Connolly was more popular among younger voters and young women in particular, whereas the spoil your vote campaign – which galvanised in the past few days – was more popular among young male voters. 

Speaking to The Journal, Cunningham said that it was interesting that voters responded this way, and that it might be an indication that those polled see “Connolly as a continuation of Michael D. Higgin’s presidency”. 

“This could be seen as giving the President a mandate, and a shift in the role that people want to see more intervention from the president on policy,” he said.