With just six weeks to go until the Presidential election, you might be forgiven for thinking that we should have a fairly good idea of who the candidates will be at this stage.  While some of the parties have got their house in order, there remain a few unanswered questions on who will be in the field or not.

Alongside party nominees, a myriad of potential independent candidates have come and gone.   In a way, I think we quite enjoy the “democracy at work” of the presidential nomination process, that sometimes allows somewhat surprising individuals, to put their heads above the parapet and consider themselves as fitting to run for the presidency.

It is something of a sport to watch them suggest they will run, and then have their hopes dashed as they either get torn to shreds on the airwaves, fail to get the nominations they need or find out from internal polling they are perhaps not as popular as they had hoped.

This does however make polling such a Presidential election a pretty tricky process.  Who to include or not include for a start is a challenge?  One that has its pitfalls as candidates appear, drop out or are eliminated, as fieldwork for the poll takes place.

For Sinn Féin, who will not announce whether they are having their own candidate until 20th September, we decided that rather than leave them out altogether, and bias the poll away from their supporters, we would need to choose a proxy candidate.    We chose Mary Lou McDonald, as she had the most coverage around a possible run at the time.

As such, initially we included all of the following candidates in the poll, all of whom had either expressed an interest in running, or been mentioned as a possible candidate for a party.  Heather Humphreys, Jim Gavin, Billy Kelleher, Mary Lou McDonald, Catherine Connolly, Peter Casey, Nick Delehanty, Joanna Donnelly, Gareth Sheridan and Maria Steen.

We then asked both first and second preference vote intention for each voter, in order to give us options should candidates drop out.  Which was just as well given Joanna Donnolly and Billy Kelleher either dropped out or were eliminated during fieldwork for the poll.

As such, for our final results we re-distributed the first preference vote of candidates that dropped out during the poll fieldwork, (Joanna Donnelly and Billy Kelleher) to their second preference options, and removed them from the field.

Mary Lou McDonald also confirmed she definitely wasn’t standing during the fieldwork period, but we made a decision to leave her in the results as she was always a proxy Sinn Féin candidate.

With all that in mind, today’s poll still provides an early indication of how people are thinking right now, even if some of the candidates and peoples support may well change over the next few weeks.    After all, we have three confirmed party candidates in place, and a proxy candidate for Sinn Féin.

The first point to make is that the public are certainly not fully tuned in to the Presidential election as yet, with 36% of voters saying they are undecided as to who they will vote for.

Once these are excluded, Heather Humphries is leading the field with 22% support.  Given she was only confirmed as the new official Fine Gael candidate a few days before the poll started, that is an impressive result.  She has strong backing from Fine Gael voters but also tends to do better among older and more upmarket voters, and of course those in Connaught/Ulster counties.  She also does surprising well among Fianna Fáil candidates, with at least 1 in 5 Fianna Fáil voters suggesting they would give her a first preference vote.   She also secures 2 in 5 Labour voters, a significantly higher proportion than Catherine Connolly.

Mary Lou McDonald comes next at 20% support, suggesting she would have very much been in the running had she stood.  While an alternative Sinn Féin candidate might not do as well, the party line seems very tight with 69% of Sinn Féin voters supporting her.

Jim Gavin lies in third place, taking 18% of the first preference vote, once Kelleher’s first preference are redistributed.  While the two candidates were still in the field, Gavin secured 15% and Kelleher 7% of the first preference.  So, the sum of the two, was higher than his final vote, and there is leakage evident.  In fact, Gavin only secures just over half of Fianna Fáil voters’ support, so has work to do to build appeal among the base, but does pick up votes from Labour (1 in 5), the Green Party and Fine Gael.

Connelly is the last candidate in the lead pack right now.  She secures 17% of the first preference vote, some five points behind Humphries, but close enough to still have an opportunity as the campaign progresses.  Her support is very much focused among Social Democrat, PBP-Solidarity and independent voters, but she does pick up some votes from Sinn Féin, even with Mary Lou in the field suggesting she could do well if Sinn Féin were to back her.  She doesn’t do so well among Labour voters however, despite the party nominating her, with just 7% backing her.

The other independent candidates are some way behind the top four in terms of support.  Peter Casey secures just 6%, Maria Steen 5%, Nick Delehanty 4% and Gavin Sheridan just 2%.

That doesn’t mean an independent candidate can’t do better, or that support won’t change during the course of the campaign.  We have certainly seen support for a candidate outside of the main parties do well in past elections, and there is time to have an impact, with a third of all voters still undecided.

In presidential elections campaigns matter more than ever.  Past Presidential elections have seen a very fickle and volatile voter, so there is very much still a lot to play for in the weeks ahead.

Business Post RED C Opinion Poll Report – September 2025