page_title: 2020 Irish general election
section_title: Results
hierarchical_section_title: 2020 Irish general election / Results
context_page_description: The 2020 Irish general election took place on Saturday 8 February, to elect the 33rd Dáil Éireann, the lower house of Ireland's parliament. The election was called following the dissolution of the 32nd Dáil by the president, at the request of the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, on 14 January 2020. All but one of the 160 seats were contested, with the Ceann Comhairle being returned automatically. The members, Teachtaí Dála, were elected by single transferable vote in multi-seat constituencies. It was the first election since 1918 to be held on a weekend.
  The election was an unprecedented three-way race, with the three largest parties each winning a share of the vote between 20% and 25%. Fianna Fáil finished with 38 seats. Sinn Féin made significant gains; it received the most first-preference votes, and won 37 seats, the party's best result since it took its current form in 1970. Fine Gael, the governing party led by Varadkar, came third both in seats and in first-preference votes. International news outlets have described the result as a historic break from the two-party system, as it was the first time in almost a century that neither Fianna Fáil nor Fine Gael won the most votes.
context_section_description: Polls opened at 07:00 UTC and closed at 22:00 UTC. The total poll was down by 2.2% to 62.9% compared to the previous election, despite it being held on a Saturday. However, severe weather warnings were in place over much of the country due to Storm Ciara.
  Counting of the votes commenced at 09:00 UTC on 9 February and concluded at 23:59 UTC on 10 February, with Galway East being the first constituency to report and Cavan-Monaghan being the final constituency to report.
  The results of the election showed a close contest between three parties. Sinn Féin won 37 seats, a gain of fifteen over the previous election. Fianna Fáil also won 37 seats, eight fewer than they had had before. Fine Gael, the party of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, won 35 seats, twelve fewer than they had had. Among the smaller parties, the Green Party showed the largest gains, increasing from three to twelve seats, a gain of nine over the previous election. In terms of popular vote, despite their close second place finish in terms of parliamentary seats, Sinn Féin received the most first-preference votes nationwide, though no single party secured more than 25% of the first-preference votes, nor more than 25% of the seats. According to Dublin City University political scientist Eoin O'Malley, it was the most fragmented Dáil ever, with the effective number of parties at 5.95.
  Seán Ó Fearghaíl was returned automatically as outgoing Ceann Comhairle; as he was a Fianna Fáil member, this gave the party 38 TDs. That number dropped to 37 when Ó Fearghaíl was re-elected as Ceann Comhairle on the first day of the 33rd Dáil.
  Journalists commented on the effects of Sinn Féin's late surge and unexpectedly high first-preference vote. John Drennan listed eleven constituencies where it might have won another seat had it run an extra candidate. Marie O'Halloran observed that Sinn Féin transfers affected the outcome of 21 constituencies, favouring other left-wing parties. Sean Murray noted that Solidarity–People Before Profit benefited most from Sinn Féin transfers.
  The Social Democrats had their best-ever result, with 6 seats; they attributed this to focusing their efforts on winnable seats rather than fielding candidates in every constituency.
  The Green Party also had their best-ever result, with 12 seats, reflecting increased interest in environmentalism and climate change in Ireland.
  Minor far-right and anti-immigration parties (the National Party, Irish Freedom Party and Anti-Corruption Ireland) fared very poorly, winning less than two percent wherever they stood. However, some independent politicians who had expressed anti-immigration views were elected, like Verona Murphy and Noel Grealish.
caption: Map showing the party winning the most first-preference votes in each constituency.