Veep-esque blunder is blowing up Irish PM’s election bid

DUBLIN — When Ireland’s fresh-faced Prime Minister Simon Harris called an early election, his ruling Fine Gael party hoped for a “Harris hop” driven by his strong personal popularity.

But the center-ground party instead is bracing for a “Simon slide” in Friday’s vote, thanks to a disastrous campaign moment and its loss of top spot in Monday’s latest polling.

The face-to-face survey of 1,200 voters, published in The Irish Times, showed Fine Gael slumping to 19 percent backing — compared to 25 percent when Harris called the election barely two weeks ago.

His party now narrowly trails both his main coalition partner, Foreign Minister Micheál Martin’s fellow centrists Fianna Fáil, on 21 percent, and Mary Lou McDonald’s left-wing opposition Sinn Féin, on 20 percent.

Fine Gael had led every poll since June, shortly after the 38-year-old Harris replaced an exhausted Leo Varadkar as taoiseach and party chief, reinvigorating a party seeking to extend a record 14-year run in power.

Fine Gael’s campaign has focused on Harris, plastering the country with posters featuring his face and the slogan “A new energy.” He’s crisscrossed the country daily to shake seemingly every hand on offer with a party-provided media bus in tow.

But that personality-driven campaign blew up in his face on Friday night.

Pressing the flesh at a supermarket checkout, Harris first tried to pass quickly by Charlotte Fallon. But soon he was bickering with her as Fallon questioned why his government wasn’t properly funding disability support workers like herself. Harris stiffly rejected her complaints, then tried to end the exchange with a curt handshake and a pirouette for the exit door.

“Keep shaking hands and pretending you’re a good man,” Fallon called after him. This spurred Harris to turn back, only to give up and turn away again, once she told him to his face: “You’re not a good man.”

It’s hardly been the only bad campaign moment for Harris. He’s been stuck defending a Fine Gael election candidate found civilly liable for beating up a man outside a pub. One campaign launch event featured a guest speaker, Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary, making fun of teachers — to the chortling approval of Fine Gael activists.

But Harris’ cranky exchange with Fallon went viral. It has been weaponized by Sinn Féin and other left-wing opposition parties to portray Harris as heartless.

For the third straight day, Harris found himself explaining and apologizing for his momentary loss of composure.

“I let myself down and I’m deeply annoyed with myself. There’s no one more annoyed with me than me,” Harris said in a studio interview Monday on state broadcaster RTÉ.

He conceded that the election had become a “tie” among Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin, with the party leaders due to face off Tuesday for their only three-way TV debate of the campaign. Harris said he hoped the debate would focus on each party’s plans for the next government, not his campaign’s moment of Veep-grade awkwardness.

“I don’t think fair people and decent people will judge me on 40 seconds on a Friday evening,” Harris told RTÉ. “I think they’ll judge me on my record. They’ll judge me over what I’m going to do over the next five years.”