With the local election a month away, Sinn Féin is running far more candidates for Dublin City Council than any other party.
At least 28 have said they are standing for that party. Meanwhile, about 18 are standing for Fianna Fáil, and 15 for Fine Gael.
The Social Democrats, Greens, Labour, and People Before Profit each have about a dozen candidates standing.
Of course, the nomination period for the local elections is 11 May to 18 May, and it’s not until that’s over that there will be an official list of who is standing and who is not.
But it seems clear Sinn Féin are on track to run twice as many candidates as most of the other parties.
Longtime Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey, who is standing, says this is risky, and requires excellent vote management for success.
“If you run too many candidates you are splitting the vote,” says Lacey. “People might not stay in long enough to benefit from the transfers.”
Sinn Féin Councillor Daithí Doolan, who is also standing, says his party didn’t want to make the same mistake it made in the 2020 general election.
“Everything is a risk, but we are approaching this election very systematically,” says Doolan. “What we don’t want to do, is we don’t want to leave seats behind.”
Adrian Kavanagh, lecturer in Geography at Maynooth University, says he thinks the strategy is a good one, especially if the candidates are spread out across the local electoral areas, to bring in the local vote from the different areas.
“I think there is no harm in running four candidates in an area where you think you will get three,” he says. “You never know what can happen.”
Why so many candidates?
There are 63 seats on Dublin City Council. These are spread across 11 electoral areas, each with five to seven seats.
Sinn Féin has only eight seats on the council at the moment. Way down from its 16 seats in the previous five-year council term, 2014–2019.
At the moment, the chamber is led by a coalition of four parties. Fianna Fáil has the most seats (11), the Green Party (9 seats), the Labour Party (8 seats), and the Social Democrats (5 seats).
Sinn Féin clearly has an ambitious slate of candidates this time around. For example, in Artane-Whitehall, a six-seater, where it now has one councillor, the party is running at least four candidates this time around.
Fine Gael Councillor Ray McAdam says that in 2009 when Fine Gael was doing well in the opinion polls it ran more candidates in each area too.
“When you’re riding high in the polls you think, we have to maximise the potential support that is there,” says McAdam.
Sinn Féin were polling at 36 percent in 2022, but are now at about 27.5 percent, according to the Irish Polling Indicator website, which tracks multiple polls.
“A lot of Sinn Féin candidates, I assume, were put in place when they were riding high in the polls,” he says.
Running too many candidates for the potential support base, can split the vote and result in fewer councillors being elected, says McAdam.
So says Lacey, the Labour councillor too. Sinn Féin voters in the north are renowned for their discipline but that may not be the case in the south, especially in a local election.
Running lots of candidates requires excellent vote management, Lacey says and few political parties are expert enough at it.
While support for Sinn Féin has fallen since its 2022 peak, it’s still above the party’s 2020 general election first-preference vote share of 24.5 percent, says Doolan, the Sinn Féin councillor.
That’s why the party is running a lot of candidates, he says. “To make sure that we dig out every possible vote, transfer to other Sinn Féin candidates and get as many people elected as possible.”
Green Party Councillor Janet Horner says it’s difficult for any political party to decide how many candidates to run in an area.
Running loads of candidates projects an image of confidence, she says, too many can split the vote and is “potentially disastrous”.
Sinn Féin have a dilemma, she says, because they underperformed in the last local elections but over-performed in the general election. “If they play it safe it looks like they are not ambitious enough,” she says.
Will it help them or hurt them?
Conor Little, a lecturer in politics in the University of Limerick, says that the risk in running too many candidates is that a candidate can be eliminated before getting a chance to benefit from transfers.
Good vote management is a party getting different groups of its voters to give their first preferences to different candidates running in their local electoral area, says Kavanagh, the Maynooth University lecturer.
It’s much better if the first preference votes are distributed evenly between three candidates in a constituency, rather than the main candidate getting most of them, Kavanagh says.
Otherwise, as some of your candidates are eliminated their transfers could go elsewhere and actually push a different party candidate over the line, he says.
Parties communicate their vote management plans with supporters by placing adverts in newspapers, through social media and leaflet drops, and ask supporters in certain areas to vote in certain ways, he says.
This doesn’t always work, of course. Some people transfer to other candidates who live in their neighbourhood rather than consistently supporting a party or political ideology, Kavanagh says.
“People want a local councillor,” he says. “Who is the best person to represent you? It’s someone from your area.”
However, overall, Kavanagh says he thinks Sinn Féin are onto a good election strategy. “Local elections are funny elections, there is a party vote but a lot of it is a personal vote,” he says.
Little, the University of Limerick lecturer, also said that most candidates bring personal and social networks. Running additional candidates could serve a party well if they pull in extra votes from a different geographical area, he says.
But Lacey, the Labour candidate, isn’t convinced that additional candidates bring a lot of extra votes with them. “Every candidate thinks they are bringing tonnes of people with them but the reality is that isn’t the case,” he says.