Veteran politician Jim Wells is not going quietly into the night. He is making noises that he might run against the DUP in South Down. He has not said if he will run as an independent or for another Unionist party. In the 2017 Assembly elections, he got 7,786 first preference votes. I am terrible at maths so I will leave the more numerate commenters to discuss how this might affect the seats. Table from Wikipedia.
He is a canny media operator who can turn the DUP snub into a positive. One to watch.
Party | Candidate | FPv% | Count | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | ||||
Sinn Féin | Sinéad Ennis | 20.76% | 10,256 | |||||||
Sinn Féin | Chris Hazzard | 17.87% | 8,827 | |||||||
SDLP | Sinéad Bradley | 14.82% | 7,323 | 7,487 | 8,906.12 | |||||
DUP | Jim Wells | 15.76% | 7,786 | 8,088 | 8,091.36 | 8,091.64 | 10,821.64 | |||
SDLP | Colin McGrath | 10.34% | 5,110 | 5,202 | 5,512.8 | 6,043.68 | 6,632.42 | 7,228.42 | 7,613.62 | |
Alliance | Patrick Brown | 9.18% | 4,535 | 4,883 | 5,101.64 | 5,194.88 | 6,007.82 | 6,730.82 | 6,874.66 | |
UUP | Harold McKee | 8.45% | 4,172 | 4,509 | 4,522.44 | 4,527.76 | ||||
TUV | Lyle Rea | 1.28% | 630 | |||||||
Green (NI) | Hannah George | 0.98% | 483 | |||||||
Independent | Patrick Clarke | 0.39% | 192 | |||||||
NI Conservatives | Gary Hynds | 0.17% | 85 | |||||||
Electorate: 75,415 Valid: 49,399 (65.50%) Spoilt: 535 Quota: 8,234 Turnout: 49,932 (66.21%) |
I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.