The good and bad - Canvassing with Fine Gael ahead of Ireland's General Election 2020

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A night of house-to-house campaigning with Dublin South's Kate O'Connell show dogged determination from canvassers, vitriol against Fine Gael and about the housing crisis and that every vote counts.

It is six o’clock on a frosty Wednesday evening and a group of people clad in luminous pink has gathered outside a Dublin supermarket. They have been doing so every night for the past two weeks. 

The reason for this somewhat unusual gathering is to mobilize support for Kate O’Connell, a local politician running in the upcoming Irish General Election. 

O’Connell, a member of the governing Fine Gael party, first won a seat in the Irish Dáil (parliament) in 2016 and is fighting furiously to retain her seat. 

That fight is almost entirely being fought by door-to-door canvassing, the most significant part of any Irish election campaign. 

Far removed from the big-budget presidential campaigns in the United States, canvassing is grounded in the work of volunteers and dogged determination. 

Faith in political canvassing is well-founded. Research from the French presidential elections found that canvassing influenced voter share by as much as 3.14% - a hugely significant amount in a tight political race. 

While O'Connell also holds coffee mornings and meet and greets in local supermarkets, it is canvassing that forms the backbone of her campaign, like so many other candidates across the country.

It is why this motley crew of young and old canvassers can be found every night, awaiting their instructions in the freezing cold.