Radio presenter Niall Boylan, who is running for a European Parliament seat in Dublin, says he thought voters would 'see though' Fine Gael on immigration.
Mr Boylan is running on the Independent Ireland ticket in the four-seater constituency.
The counting of European Parliament ballots will begin on Sunday.
In the local elections Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are battling it out to be the largest party, while Sinn Féin is not making the gains that many expected.
Elsewhere the Green Party is doing better than expected with Dublin City Councillor Hazel Chu holding onto her seat.
Independents are performing very well and their gain seems to be Sinn Féin's loss, with Waterford TD David Cullinane admitting it is not racking up the votes it had hoped for.
Labour says it is happy with how it is performing so far - while the predicted rise of the far-right does not seem to be materialising.
Niall Boylan told Newstalk it is a good day for Independents but a better one for Fine Gael.
"I expected them to do a lot worse, I really did," he said.
"But I think they picked up a lot of votes because they turned the corner about five weeks ago when it came to the immigration issue.
"Of course they jumped on the bandwagon."
'I thought that wasn't going to be good enough, that people would to see through that [...] but they didn't'@Niall_Boylan credits Fine Gael's better-than-expected #LE24 performance to 'jumping on the bandwagon' on immigration#LE24 #Elections2024 @ElectionNT @andreagilligan pic.twitter.com/D9p1RB0fTo
— NewstalkFM (@NewstalkFM) June 8, 2024
Mr Boylan said he's not surprised by Fine Gael's approach.
"Simon Harris taking the bull by the horns and saying, 'We're going to do something about it' - I think people just wanted to hear him saying they're going to do something about it," he said.
"Not addressing that there was a problem was a huge problem for Fine Gael.
"I thought because they've only been addressing it for the last three weeks, for example, I thought that wasn't going to be good enough, that people would see through that - but they didn't.
"A lot of voters who would be keen Fine Gael voters kind of stuck with them".
Staff counting ballot papers for the local and European elections in the RDS in Dublin, 8-6-24. Image: Sasko Lazarov/© RollingNews.ieMr Boylan said he believes immigration is simply more tangible than other issues.
"Immigration is just something that's really, really getting them because it's very visible," he said.
"It's everything else with immigration: I think immigration happened to be the touch paper that set it all off.
"They're annoyed at the cost of living, they're annoyed with healthcare... immigration was just something that they could latch on to".
Mr Boylan puts his chances of taking a Dublin European Parliament seat at "50/50" but believes he is "very transfer friendly".
