Can McDowell double the Progressive Democrats' seats in the Dáil? New policies, a transformed party and perhaps some high-profile candidates will be needed, writes Noel Whelan.
What was most surprising about what Progressive Democrat trustee Paul MacKay had to say about the party's private polling at the weekend was not his revelation that six of the party's eight Dáil seats were vulnerable but the implication that two of the party's seats were safe.
It may not prove as bad as that for the party when next year's election comes, but there are many reasons why it would be reckless for its new leader to regard any of his colleagues as holding safe seats.
Four of the eight Progressive Democrat TDs will have served only one term when going into the next election.
This is a notoriously precarious point in Dáil careers. The true bulwark of incumbency is not yet available to them and the novelty of being a first-timer has abated.
One term can be too short a period to plant the durable political roots needed to protect seats when the national electoral tide goes out for the party.
It is also significant that the four-seat gains which the Progressive Democrats made in 2002 were at the ultimate expense of Fine Gael. Dublin South East, Dún Laoghaire, Laois-Offaly and Longford were all particularly bad areas for Fine Gael in a very bad election.
However, all four of these constituencies are now near the top of Fine Gael's list of targeted gains, as is Liz O'Donnell's seat in Dublin South. In those circumstances, Fine Gael's rise in the polls over the last two years is particularly worrying for the Progressive Democrats.
Mary Harney's seat is the safest of the Progressive Democrat seats - all the more so now that she will have more time to focus on it. She is helped by the fact that her Dublin Mid West constituency has an additional seat this time, and the more intense competition is in the Lucan half of her constituency rather than her Clondalkin base.
Opinions on Michael McDowell are as divided in his constituency of Dublin South East as they are everywhere else, but his liberal economic outlook and strong anti-Sinn Féin stance are among the features which make him attractive to this most settled of Dublin's middle-class areas. He is likely to be comfortably re-elected.
There have been recent rumours of polls which show him to be weak but even if they are to be believed these polls would have been taken in the aftermath of the C case controversy and the vicious row in the PDs over the leadership last June, both of which hurt McDowell politically - more unfairly in the latter instance than in the former.
Liz O'Donnell raised a few eyebrows when she told a radio interviewer yesterday that her Dublin South seat was not one of the six seats revealed as vulnerable by MacKay.
She was relatively comfortably elected in 2002, but had a very close call in 1997. Given the fact that Fine Gael's ticket this times out includes a returning Alan Shatter, that Eamon Ryan is unusually safe for a Green Party TD and given the effort Labour is likely to put into regaining a seat here O'Donnell cannot take anything for granted.
Dublin South's propensity to be changeable in accordance with national trends means that, ironically, O'Donnell's prospects will depend much on McDowell's performance as leader.
In Dún Laoghaire, Fiona O'Malley will have a very uphill struggle. Fine Gael currently has no seat in this once blue bastion and has ambitiously targeted it for two gains. Labour is also seeking a gain here, so unless Barry Andrews is weaker than local polling suggests, O'Malley is likely to be the casualty if any of these gains materialise for the rainbow.
Her less colourful cousin Tim O'Malley, who sits in her father's old seat in Limerick East, has the advantage of a deeper political base and of weaker Fine Gael contenders for his seat and so he should be safer.
Noel Grealish was the fluky beneficiary of a three-candidate strategy in Galway West in 2002, but could win his seat more easily this time out. He is a hard constituency worker, and like Bobby Molloy before him is more in the mode of a Fianna Fáil operator than his more liberal and high-profile south Dublin colleagues.
Divisions over candidate strategy in both Fianna Fáil and Labour (one of whose former councillors will run as an independent), coupled with the retirement of the Fine Gael incumbent Padraig McCormack, are also factors likely to operate in Grealish's favour.
In the midlands things will be more difficult for the Progressive Democrats.
The elevation of Tom Parlon to the position of party president, and its associated nationwide organisational responsibilities, will cut little electoral ice in Laois-Offaly where all other parties suggest Parlon's base has weakened considerably. The Cowen-imposed discipline of the Fianna Fáil machine in this five-seater means that the probable return of Fine Gael's Charlie Flanagan to the Dáil will likely be at Parlon's expense.
Getting re-elected was always going to be difficult for Mae Sexton. However, she also has to contend with the fact that her Longford base, which was with Roscommon in 2002, has now been redrawn to join Westmeath as a four-seater.
Creative tensions between the Cassidy and O'Rourke Fianna Fáil camps in Longford, the absence of any base for the Progressive Democrats in Westmeath and a stronger Fine Gael challenger in Longford itself mean that, as of now, Sexton is likely to be squeezed out.
As weak at defending what they have, the Progressive Democrats have hopes of making gains.
Colm O'Gorman in Wexford is their best prospect for a new seat but his effort will require a lot of attention from the new leader. Although O'Gorman has a high profile it needs to be wider than its single-issue focus. He is based in the demographically-transformed Gorey end of the county but as of yet there is little evidence that the necessary organisation exists on the ground and he may have been declared too early in the electoral cycle to maintain momentum.
The party also has high hopes for Tom Morrisey who has moved to Dublin North. However, he is still unknown to most of the constituency.
The Progressive Democrats had two TDs in Cork in the past, but in recent times the city has been an electoral wasteland for the party. Unless McDowell manages to persuade Pat Cox to return to both the party and the electoral fray it is likely to remain so.
McDowell yesterday promised a policy-led transformation of the Progressive Democrats' electoral fortunes. New and newly-communicated policies will help but unless this is combined with organisational transformation and perhaps some new high-profile candidates, his promise of doubling the party Dáil representation is unlikely to be realised.