What will Holly Cairns do next? That is the only question this weekend, after our landmark opinion poll which reveals the phenomenal impact already made by the new Social Democrats leader.
ithin days of her election to lead a relatively new political party, the poll finds support for the Social Democrats has soared five points to 9pc.
She and her party are in unchartered waters. And with a target on her back now too. So what will she do next?
The short answer is, she will be limited only by the lack of her own ambition. She needs to think big — bigger than imagined.
Holly for Taoiseach?
It’s not as crazy as you might think. There are 18 months, maybe two years to the next election. That’s plenty of time for Hollymania to take off like a rocket.
It is all about ‘change’. And Holly Cairns is the only politician in the country right now with the potential to shape shift — to draw real support across the generational divide in a way Sinn Féin never could.
The short analysis is that the Social Democrats are up five points and Sinn Féin is down two — falling below the 30pc mark (as predicted here last month) for the first time in 18 months.
In fact, Sinn Féin is down six points in four months in our polls — support which has now found a new home with the Social Democrats.
The somewhat longer analysis is that voters craving ‘change’ were already starting to drift from Sinn Féin. The party’s fall below 30pc came more quickly than expected — but it was coming anyway.
There is a huge section of voters craving change from Fine Gael (21pc), Fianna Fáil (19pc) — and also from the Labour Party (3pc), which this weekend is facing into an existential crisis.
Labour elected a new leader 12 months ago — but nothing happened.
What wouldn’t Ivana Bacik have given for a Holly Cairns bounce? What wouldn’t she give for a Gilmore gale — the storm caused by the 2008 economic crash, which threatened to blow in a Labour Taoiseach for the first time.
Today’s poll puts an end to talk of a Social Democrat/Labour merger — something Cairns herself nailed dead upon arrival as leader last week.
But let us leave aside Labour for the moment (house private, no flowers please…).
What odds that Holly Cairns really catches fire, and the SocDems threaten to become a fourth force in Irish politics?
This weekend we have a new leader, who has broken the set-in-stone political landscape. So let us break down her surge.
With Holly as leader, the Social Democrats now command 16pc support among all 18 to 34-year-olds, and 14pc among all 35 to 44-year-olds — but thereafter their support falls back towards more traditional levels.
With Holly as leader, the party commands 11pc of the total middle-class, and 7pc of the working-class vote.
Perhaps more relevant, 17pc of those who live rent-free with parents or friends, and 12pc of those who rent privately, now support the SocDems.
Housing remains comfortably atop the list of all voters’ concerns at 55pc, up three points in a month.
So what will Holly do next? The short answer is more of the same; grow the party as quickly and solidly as she can. The SocDems can expect candidates queuing up now to run for the party.
The long answer, though, is more complicated.
Sinn Féin is on the slide, for several reasons. People were tiring of them. Their TDs, often shrill, seemed to have been around a long time, many living in comfortable homes (if, arguably, not mansions).
Then there were the growing questions over its finances, and of course the alleged (and denied) association with organised crime.
Leaving aside all that, there was also, always, its perennial association with the Provisional IRA. For many voters, particularly older generations, that was a bridge too far. Broadly speaking, those aged 45 and older were far less inclined to vote Sinn Féin.
Which led me to conclude in recent months that Mary Lou McDonald’s party had peaked and was in decline. Now, for the first time in 18 months, it has fallen below 30pc support in our poll — just as Holly Cairns comes blazing on to the scene.
The Social Democrats have none of the associations which dog Sinn Féin. The party is new, fresh, young and idealistic — and authentic.
All of which is why Holly Cairns and the SocDems will be limited only by the lack — if any — of their own ambition.
Here’s why: people in older age groups also want ‘change’.
They’ve voted Fianna Fáil, or Fine Gael, or Labour all their lives — but never Sinn Féin. And they feel for their kids, in their mid-20s and older, living in the boxroom. In other words, Holly’s generation.
Holly Cairns and the SocDems now have the potential to bring to national politics what the Repeal the Eighth movement brought to many families — a joining of hands across the kitchen table.
In the short-term, the party will aim to grow further, but eventually she will have to decide: with whom to govern?
Our poll actually finds a growing preference this month for the current Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/Greens administration ahead of a Sinn Féin-led left alternative. That is, perhaps, because Solidarity-People Before Profit last week made a unilateral move to suggest such an alternative.
It would be political suicide though — wouldn’t it? — for Holly Cairns to govern with either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
But so polarised are people, it would also be a huge risk to offer to share power with Sinn Féin, not to mention the far left.
Right now, Holly Cairns will not worry about any of that. This weekend she has all three of the main parties in her sights. And who knows how far, and how quickly she will blaze this trail?
