INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES REMAIN voters’ preferred choice ahead of the European Parliament elections next week, according to a new opinion poll.

The results from the latest poll by The Journal and Ireland Thinks also show that both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have overtaken Sinn Féin.

Some 23% of people intend to vote for independents on 7 June.

Fine Gael is now the second most popular grouping among those polled with 18% (down one), followed by Fianna Fáil on 17.7% (up 1.7) and Sinn Féin on 17.4% (down 4.6).

Despite their drop in popularity in recent weeks, Sinn Féin remains a strong preference among younger voters with 22% of people aged 18-34 saying they’ll vote for Mary Lou McDonald’s party.

Some 30% of 18 to 34-year-olds and 32% of 35 to 64-year-olds, however, said they’ll vote for independents or others.

In the age breakdowns, Aontú and other smaller parties are included in this category. In the overall total, Aontú and other small parties are polling at 5%, in line with 4% of voters who said they would vote for Aontú in the last poll. 

Fianna Fáil is the most popular party among over 65s with 32%, followed by Fine Gael on 26%.

Jump in support for Independents 

‘Independents and others’ is the most popular choice for both women and men (28% each), while women are more likely to vote for Fine Gael (22% vs 15%) and men are more likely to vote for Fianna Fáil (21% vs 14%).

The overall state of the other parties is as follows:

• Green Party: 7.2% (up one)
• Social Democrats: 5.3% (no change)
• Labour: 3.5% (up 0.5)
• Solidarity-People Before Profit: 2.8% (up 0.8)

The rest of the parties classed as ‘other’ include Independent Ireland, Rabharta, the Irish Freedom Party, Ireland First, and The Irish People. 

Some 1,161 people took part in the poll from 24 to 27 May, and there is a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9%.

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Independent candidates overtake Sinn Féin as voters' top choice ahead of European elections

The vast majority of people who participated in the poll said they plan on voting in the European elections with 90% saying they are ‘very likely’ to vote next week.

Most people across all age groups said they intend to vote – ranging from 85% among 18 to 34-year-olds to 95% among over 65s.

However, it should be noted that just under half of eligible voters turned up at the polls in 2019.

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This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work are the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.