I think the polls are wrong in this campaign. There is a very strong tendency in this country for people to vote along party lines. While loyal party members/supporters of the various parties may not like their candidate, when it comes to polling day, they'll put their no. 1 beside this candidate.
It's safe to say that FG and Labour have core votes in at least the 15-20% range, as does FF (which will go to Gallagher in this campaign). Even with a poor campaign, it is difficult to accept that Mitchell is only at 6% - this would mean that even FG activists will not vote for him, which simply will not happen. SF has a core of c.10%.
So, we can expect that all of the 4 candidates who have recently been or are currently members of political parties will easily get through the first couple of rounds of eliminations. With such a big field, I expect that all 3 Independents will be eliminated before any of this 4. However, none of the 4 will have anything close to a quota, so it will all come down to transfers.
