According to a poll conducted by Trinity News, Seán Thim O’Leary has a strong lead in the students’ union presidential race, but all three candidates are losing momentum compared to reopening nominations (RON).
36.41% of decided voters indicated that O’Leary will be their first choice. Patrick Keegan follows behind with 26.04% of first-preference votes. RON (19.82%) is a slightly more popular choice than Giovanni Li (17.74%).
However, only 50.1% of respondents are decided in this race, leaving just under half of respondents undecided. Candidates may still be able to appeal to this large undecided voter base.
Seán Thím O’Leary is a third year PPES student who currently serves both as archivist for the union and as PPES class representative. They are also chairperson of the Trinity Social Democrats. They acknowledged in their interview with Trinity News that, while their experience with the party is “going to inform how [they] end up approaching things”, they are “not running as a party candidate”.
O’Leary is unsurprisingly most popular among centre-left respondents. A poll conducted by Trinity News in 2024 showed the Social Democrats to be the most popular party among Trinity students. Further, the Social Democrats are the largest political party on campus. The centre-left is notably the most represented ideological group in the poll. As O’Leary is aligned with the centre-left, the popularity of this ideology among respondents may have assisted in their topping the poll.
Giovanni Li is a first year MEELC student who currently serves as the ethnic minorities officer of the union, chair of the union’s Black and Asian minorities support group, and as class representative for MEELC. He also serves on the Union Forum.
His involvement in college life doesn’t stop with the union: He is also an analyst for the Student Managed Fund and serves on the committees of both the knitting society and the Korean society.
Li’s manifesto is full of ambitious promises. His manifesto states he will abolish the student contribution fee, introduce interest-free loans up to €500, and introduce sleeping pods on campus. While nice-sounding, these promises do not seem realistic and he has no clear action plans, perhaps contributing to his poor performance in the poll.
The seriousness of Li’s campaign came under scrutiny at media hustings, with UT Editor Brídín Ní-Fhearraigh Joyce asking him how people can take his campaign seriously if he makes jokes in his manifesto, referring to him having listed “Tobacco Expert/Sommelier” under his list of experience.
Li is most popular among centre right and right wing voters, perhaps owing to his lack of political party affiliation, which sets him apart from his opponents. However, he is nonetheless a self-described “pragmatic leftist” with manifesto points on furthering LGBTQIA+ rights, racial equality, and the BDS movement.
Patrick Keegan is a third year business and politics student and current international students’ officer of the union. He also serves as chair of Trinity BDS and as secretary of Ógra Shinn Féin. In a similar vein to O’Leary, he stated in his interview with Trinity News that “[his] party membership won’t be something that’s affecting [his] leadership.”
Keegan is most popular with left-wing voters. His campaign is heavily focused on his experience with using direct action to effect change. In his interview with Trinity News, he described activism as his “passion” and described direct action as being both fun and effective. He also emphasised his desire to see more direct action carried out by the union.
O’Leary notably led the petition to impeach László Molnárfi – perhaps the poster boy for use of direct action in the union – in March 2024. O’Leary’s campaign is highly focused on lobbying, and direct action is not mentioned in their manifesto. However, they do see a place for direct action as a form of escalation, saying at media hustings that direct action becomes necessary “when you have no opportunity to make meaningful progress through committees, through meetings, through the boring side of things”.
Keegan was not involved in the petition to impeach Molnárfi, and said in his interview with Trinity News that he believes Molnárfi’s use of direct action was “very effective at actually getting stuff done.”
The campaign to re-open nominations for president began on Tuesday evening. The campaign is run by an anonymous group of students. Since the launch of this campaign, 30% of respondents have selected RON in this race.
The Instagram page dedicated to the “RON on Pres” campaign has since amassed 277 followers, making them the most followed presidential campaign page.
The Electoral Commission (EC) offered the campaign the opportunity to join the official race, an offer which would have granted them up to €250 worth of campaign materials, including posters, flyers, t-shirts, and campaign stands in college buildings.
However, the campaign declined to join the official race, citing a number of reasons in a statement posted to their Instagram on Saturday. They reportedly do not wish to have a campaign manager, as they are reluctant to associate one face with the cause. They further noted that, given the delay in the launch of their campaign, they have already missed out on many benefits they would have accrued were they to partake in the official race. They highlighted the importance of bridging this gap over the weekend. Were they to accept the EC’s offer, they would be disallowed from weekend campaigning.
Despite the campaign’s rising popularity, re-opening nominations is nonetheless extremely rare. Judging by the poll results, it does not look likely that the “RON on Pres” campaign will be successful. However, the campaign did have a late start, launching after the Trinity News poll opened.
Choosing to re-open nominations is most popular among left-wing voters, suggestive of a dissatisfaction that runs deeper than mere ideological disagreement with the candidates, who all fall to the left of the political spectrum.
Respondents who plan to vote to re-open nominations largely do not feel well represented by the students’ union. 27.78% strongly disagree with the sentiment “I feel well represented by TCDSU”, whereas 21.92% disagree.
16.67% of RON voters neither agree or disagree with this statement, and 36.82% of RON voters feel well represented by TCDSU to some degree.
At media hustings, candidates for the presidential race were asked about whether the union constitution should have an opt-out clause. The question was posed in the context of grievances that have been aired in recent years regarding the union’s perceived failure to represent all students.
All three candidates emphasised the importance of funding for the union; However, both Keegan and Li indicated an openness to looking further into giving students the option to opt out of the union.
Keegan said: “If somebody on paper wanted to say ‘I’m no longer affiliated with the union’, go ahead”. In his interview with Trinity News, he emphasised that he can’t preemptively make a judgement on disaffiliation before the constitutional review working group has laid out a proposal, but he thinks “dependending on how that is laid out, I think that could be a good thing”. He continued: “It’s all about giving students their own free will to decide.”
At media hustings, Li further reiterated that funding for the union from students is vital, however he stated that: “within six months, if people are not happy with my leadership, I will look into options so that people can opt out of the SU”.
O’Leary is leading in popularity in both the Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences (AHSS) and Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths (STEM) faculties. Notably, Giovanni Li is the most popular candidate in the health sciences faculty, despite lagging behind elsewhere.
