Almost half of Irish people want Mary Lou McDonald to be the next Taoiseach, according to an Amarach research poll of 1040 Irish adults conducted for Extra.ie on February 16.

Of the people surveyed, 42% said that they would like to see Mary Lou McDonald as the next leader of the country while 26% went with Micheal Martin and just 18% said they would like to see Leo Varadkar returned as Taoiseach — despite the election exit poll pitting all three parties on 22%.

The 50-year-old Sinn Fein leader was dramatically more popular among younger voters compared to both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael’s leaders — a staggering 52% of those under 35 polled said that they would like to see the president of Sinn Fein as the head of the Irish government.

Among the youngest cohort in the survey, Mary Lou McDonald did better than Micheal Martin and Leo Varadkar’s combined scores by almost one-fifth of the total group, a theme that reflects the results of the GE2020 exit poll.

Micheal Martin and Leo Varadkar polled at 18% and 15% respectively when it came to under 35-year-olds, with their combined preference score at 33 percentage points — 19% less than Mary Lou McDonald’s total.

Ms McDonald secured almost half of the 35 to 44 demographic with 48%, while Martin and Varadkar got 20% and 16% respectively — leaving the Sinn Fein leader with another double-digit lead over her rivals, some 12% ahead of Martin and Varadkar combined.

While Mary Lou’s popularity waned among the older groups — she still outperformed Leo Varadkar in the over 55s group with 30%, seven percentage points more than the leader of Fine Gael. In the same category, Micheal Martin scored the highest with 36% of respondents declaring they would like to see him as the next Taoiseach.

In the 45 to 55 category, Ms. McDonald outperformed her closest competitor, Micheal Martin, by 11 percentage points with the Sinn Fein leader on 40% compared to 29% for her Fianna Fail rival. Varadkar trailed behind both party leaders on 17%.

In fact, Leo Varadkar performed the worst in every one of the categories featured in the poll which included; male; female; under 35; 35 to 44; 45 to 54; the over 55s; both higher and lower socio-economic classes; Connacht and Ulster; Dublin; Leinster (excluding Dublin) and Munster.

There was a slight preference among female respondents towards Mary Lou McDonald with 45% of women going with the leader of Sinn Fein while 38% of men said they wanted Ms. McDonald as the next Taoiseach.

Surprisingly, Mr. Varadkar scored fewer percentage points than Micheal Martin in the home of the outgoing Taoiseach, Dublin city, with Varadkar on 19% and Martin on 20% — Mary Lou was the most popular in Dublin with 48% of those surveyed giving her their preference.

The Sinn Fein leader was the most popular among both the higher and lower social classes (ABC1F50+ and C2DEF50-) with 34% of the higher and 49% of the lower.

Among the higher class, Leo Varadkar scored the worst with 21%, nine points lower than Micheal Martin, and similarly scored poorly in the lower social class with 15% — eight points behind the Fianna Fail leader.

Gerard O’Neill from Amarach said of the poll’s findings: ‘Our research for Extra.ie suggests that many Irish voters have “loaned” their votes to Sinn Fein in the recent election. Therefore expectations for a new government, especially one comprising Sinn Fein, will be very high indeed. This implies that failure to deliver on electoral promises could see a sharp reversal in political fortunes at the next election.’