Northern Ireland Assembly Election, 2022

[beesley]

This May, Northern Ireland will go to the polls for the seventh election for the current incarnation of its legislature.

The last election took place in 2017, and was a snap election called following the resignation of Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness as Deputy First Minister. Under the terms of power sharing, thismeant the end of the executive, and the 2017 election was called (for an assembly smaller in size), in which the DUP remained the largest party by just one seat.

Due to the refusal of Sinn Fein to return to power sharing (for a variety reasons, primarily the prospect of scandal-ridden Arlene Foster as First Minister), no executive was formed, and negotiations stalled and recommenced for a period of three years. Despite this, this was a turbulent time for Northern Ireland due to the ramifications of Brexit, and the Westminster-led legalisation of abortion. The executive was reformed in early 2020.

The DUP's Arlene Foster took office as First Minister for just over a year, until she was ousted as DUP leader. Her successor was Edwin Poots - but he declined to take office as First Minister and nominated his Assembly Colleague Paul Givan. This was not well-received, and while Givan remains First Minister, Poots resigned. His successor, Jeffrey Donaldson MP will lead the party into the election. Polling is scarce (no polls so far this year), but projections now have Sinn Fein in the lead, with the DUP continuing their decline, and the other parties in the executive (the UUP, SDLP and Alliance) holding, or in the case of the Alliance, significantly improving. This could easily change given the volatility of Northern Irish electoral behaviour - as always there are a mixture of short and long term trends. However, the 2019 General Election was the first in which nationalist parties held more seats than unionist parties.

Assembly Elections are conducted via the Single Transferable Vote system in Northern Ireland's 18 constituencies - coterminous with those at Westminster. Each elects 5 MLAs. It might be assumed that DUP and UUP transfer with each other, as do Sinn Fein and SDLP, but that is too scarce a generalisation, and at the last election there was a strong amount of transfer between the UUP, SDLP and Alliance, which did have an effect. Some indications are that that trend may well continue this time.

[beesley]

Interesting that the polling breaks down:

Nationalist: SF 25 + SDLP 11 + PBP 1 = 37
Unionist: DUP 17 + UUP 14 + TUV 12 = 43
Neither: Alliance 14 Green 3 = 17

So there’s more support for the unionists still, it’s just the DUP’s incompetence is costing them support to the TUV and leaving Sinn Fein in first.

Although, I still find it hard to see the TUV - essentially a one man party - getting 12% of the vote. I’d expect at least some of that will come back to the DUP.

Given the localised nature of Assembly campaigns, due to vote balancing, perhaps a localised 'Michelle O'Neill could be First Minister' might help.

Also, the surge needs to actually materialise in areas way beyond their normal  areas - they only have councillors on two councils if I'm not mistaken.

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/EmmaVardyTV/status/1489166613458923524?s=20&t=R_N_awIQSg...

If there was a UK equivalent to the nuclear option, this might be it. Note that legislation under scrutiny in Parliament at the moment, if passed, would mean that the Assembly Election would still take place this May and no earlier. But it does mean the Executive would be in limbo until that point.

In terms of election ramifications, this might regalvanise the DUP/TUV end of politics but don't assume UUP or Alliance voters will take that kindly to it.

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/BenKellyTweets/status/1493142932530081793?t=jeFHyWZlXtcOlE2b...

First non LucidTalk/conventional poll in a while. Decline for the DUP particularly but also for Sinn Fein and the SDLP. Big increase for Alliance, Greens and TUV and increase within the MOE for the UUP. But this is first preference intention and doesn't take into account transfers and local races.

More interesting is that hardly anyone said the NI protocol was their top issue; health was top among all communities.

[beesley]

TUV doing noticeably less well than in LucidTalk, though.  On those figures I think they'd be struggling to make a breakthrough outside of North Antrim.

According to someone on VoteUK, LucidTalk uses a panel rather than a random sample, but understandably it's nowhere near the size of say, YouGov, so there's some logical issues there.
 

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/steviemac1122/status/1495391710255460354?s=20&t=uIgwtGxa...

Crossposting just to say that DUP MLA and presumptive candidate for South Belfast has died aged 39.

[beesley]

The UUP don't exactly have particularly good organisation in Belfast, and their main goal is an MLA in North, and there's certainly nowhere in Belfast where the TUV are expected to be a problem if they all transfer along, so it should be alright.

[beesley]

DUP co-opt councillor Paul Rankin into Poots' seat in Lagan Valley. What a farce.

[beesley]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0btd6v1 - a reasonably good (albeit long) introduction to the state of the field here.

[beesley]

It should be clarified that whilst a lot of the unionist vote has moved to Alliance, the new voters they are gaining now are supposedly almost as much from the nationalist community. If this materialises into seats west of the Bann, we are yet to see.

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1520037011335401475?t=Y0mAwmOxAawqnmM9jJ...

A poll for your viewing pleasure. Don't put too much stock in it though - this is a panel poll that did well in 2017 but not so much at Westminster Elections.

[beesley]

Will there be any exit polling like we typically see in Westminster elections?

No. There isn't even exit polling for the Scottish or Welsh elections.

Kind of embarrassing honestly. The local papers don't have a ton of updates either, unfortunately.

The transfer aspect renders a lot of predicting somewhat limited anyway, even during counting a lot of incorrect calls are made based on poor prediction of the transfers. So an exit poll of first preference shares would give you exactly the same knowledge as the actual first preference totals but just earlier and less accurate.

[beesley]

Where would you guys suggest looking for results as they start to come in tonight?

Even in the US, it'll be tomorrow - you should have the early totals when you wake up in the US. You can look on the news sites LabourJersey suggested above or on the BBC who will be presenting the main TV results show.

[beesley]

I have to assume that the growth of the TUV is not conducive to courting more moderate unionists who have moved over to the Alliance back into the unionist camp (to the extent that the DUP/UUP are interested in courting them back, though with results like this I would think they have to start trying in a more concerted way to do that).

To their credit, the UUP have made much more of an effort to distinguish themselves from the DUP and TUV this election, though I think that was aimed at turning out unionists who don't normally vote and getting Alliance/SDLP transfers (the latter of which their ground game has made a big deal out of, supposedly). As you say though, it will still require a lot more of an effort in the long-term. The DUP on the other hand haven't made any such effort at all.

[beesley]

Not much that can be safely said but one of the early stories is a poor result for the SDLP in traditional areas at least.

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/NextIrishGE/status/1522582981969428480?s=20&t=xeA6QzyaiN...

https://twitter.com/NextIrishGE/status/1522577372159131648?s=20&t=xeA6QzyaiN...

Story so far nationally - SF polling strongly, Alliance and TUV increasing a lot, DUP a bit down but not in as bad a position as the SDLP, UUP and Greens who are both at risk of losses.

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/NextIrishGE/status/1522585683847753729?s=20&t=xeA6QzyaiN...

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/NextIrishGE/status/1522593378390745088?s=20&t=xeA6QzyaiN...

https://twitter.com/NextIrishGE/status/1522594603534364674?s=20&t=xeA6QzyaiN...

https://twitter.com/NextIrishGE/status/1522595234550530048?s=20&t=xeA6QzyaiN...

https://twitter.com/NextIrishGE/status/1522591015085002754?s=20&t=xeA6QzyaiN...

https://twitter.com/NextIrishGE/status/1522586620029018112?s=20&t=xeA6QzyaiN...

[beesley]

TUV has performed well but not probably well enough for any seats.

Apart from Jim Allister returning for North Antrim, there has been talk that they'd gain a seat in Strangford (looking good) and possibly Newry and Armagh (much less likely). And I agree with your analysis that the Greens have a good shot of being wiped out.

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/NextIrishGE/status/1522604882095710211?s=20&t=xeA6QzyaiN...

A pretty impressive personal result for Robin Swann here and also the TUV - probably no change here - 1 UUP, 1 SF both elected plus 2 DUP and Jim Allister.

[beesley]

TUV has performed well but not probably well enough for any seats.

Apart from Jim Allister returning for North Antrim, there has been talk that they'd gain a seat in Strangford (looking good) and possibly Newry and Armagh (much less likely). And I agree with your analysis that the Greens have a good shot of being wiped out.

Imo Strangford is a long shot because there’s nowhere to gain transfers from. I think they’ll be leapfrogged by the second Alliance candidate with relative ease off SDLP preferences.

Ah ok - can't remember the exact figures but was under the impression they were 1000 off quota. The suggestion was that Harry Harvey's transfers would put him over the top as there would be a chain of Weir's elimination, McIlveen's election and Harvey coming on top easily. But I have no clue about how the DUP managed their vote other than that Peter Weir has absolutely no personal vote being a parachute candidate from North Down.

[beesley]

TUV ending with 1 seat despite getting 7.6% of first prefs is very very funny.
Shows you how STV does not guarantee proportional representation for your party if it is radioactive to vote transfers.

A bunch of unionists said afterwards that it was undemocratic that the TUV candidate (third on first prefs) wasn't elected in Strangford and Mike Nesbitt was, despite the fact any electoral system where the TUV candidate would've been elected, like the top 5 candidates on first preferences just being elected, would've resulted in Mike Nesbitt being elected as well.