The party of Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris, Fine Gael, has seen a dramatic decline in support, dropping to third place after losing a quarter of its backing in just two weeks. According to an Ipsos B&A poll for Irish Times, Fine Gael‘s support fell from 25% to 19%.
Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil, the main coalition partner of Fine Gael, saw a two-point increase, rising to 21%, and the opposition party Sinn Féin gained one point, reaching 20%.
The dramatic drop in Fine Gael‘s support follows a series of campaign missteps by Harris, including an incident in which he cut off a conversation with a care worker, who was criticizing the neglect of sector issues. The video of the encounter went viral, and Harris later publicly apologized.
The poll, conducted from Wednesday to Saturday, does not fully capture the fallout from the incident on Friday evening. In a separate poll conducted on Sunday, Fine Gael dropped further by four points to 22%, while Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin both received 20%.
With early elections scheduled for November 29, the results show that two of the three main parties will need to form a coalition government. The most likely partners are Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, as both parties have pledged to govern without Sinn Féin.
