All three Executive parties took a hit in the latest Lucid Talk poll in yesterday’s Belfast Telegraph. For Sinn Féin it will be concerning, but not yet alarming. But for the DUP it could prompt some to wonder if a little panic might not be justified.
Adding the votes for the DUP and TUV together shows no essential change since the last Assembly election. What is clearly changing is how the parties share out those voters.
The DUP has dropped back to 18% in this poll, while the TUV has advanced once again.
Just how vulnerable would the DUP be if these LucidTalk figures were repeated at the election?
The best way to estimate that is to look at the swing required in each constituency to take a seat away from the DUP and give it to the TUV. [If you want to read an explanation of swing you will find it at the bottom of this article.]
The February LucidTalk poll found that there had been a swing away from the DUP to the TUV of 3.3%. Today’s poll puts that figure higher. Exactly how much higher will not be clear until LucidTalk publish their full tables shortly. It will be at least 3.5% but could be well over 4%.
The chart below is a guide to what this could mean. In a constituency with only one DUP MLA the notional tipping point is the minimum swing needed to give the seat to the TUV.
Where there are two DUP MLA’s the notional tipping point represents the best possible case for the DUP. It assumes that the two DUP candidates are perfectly balanced (that is that they both have the same number of first preference votes and transfers). In real life the TUV candidate most only pass the lower of the DUP candidates to take the seat. For this reason, the effective tipping point could prove to be up to 1% or 2% lower than the notional tipping point shown on the chart.
It should be added that if a party’s vote becomes unstable, it becomes increasingly difficult for it to manage vote balancing well, possibly increasing the risk further.
In North Antrim the TUV would also have two candidates. This would handicap the TUV if their balancing were poorer than the DUP’s, pushing the effective tipping point above the notional level shown here.
Another factor which could alter the tipping point is any alteration to the pattern of transfers. It is certainly possible that these would remain unchanged. But there must also be the risk for the DUP that any reduction in their popularity in the contest for first preference votes would be accompanied by a reduction in their ability to attract transfers, although that effect is likely to be limited.
I have attempted to reflect these uncertainties with the colour coding in the chart below.
*West Belfast does not have a DUP MLA, but last year’s boundary changes make it likely that a unionist will take a seat next time. A swing of 4.0% from DUP to TUV here would make that a TUV gain rather than a DUP one.
**Only one DUP MLA was elected in North Down in 2022, but that number was increased last year when the Independent Unionist MLA, Alex Easton, was elected to Westminster and gifted his Assembly seat to his old party. To calculate the tipping point I have allocated Easton’s first preference votes among the other parties according to his transfers.
One last very important point. The chart does not mean, for example, that DUP members in East Belfast can read this poll, breath a sigh of relief at their safety, and resolve to head off to North Belfast to help out when the election is called. The average swing is just that, an average. Individual constituencies will deviate above and below it and we won’t know which and by how much until the election is over. Currently the DUP must view every constituency as a real potential risk.
I have considered whether any DUP MLA could survive a TUV gain in any constituency by taking a seat from another party but see little prospect of that, especially with the strengthened showing of the UUP.
These figures would also give the TUV a significant presence in Council chambers, at the expense of the DUP.
For the last three decades the DUP has successfully straddled the divisions in attitudes and policy priorities within unionism. This has permitted the DUP to totally dominate unionist politics. These divisions are represented, but also sometimes camouflaged, by the TUV and UUP. The divisions were very clearly set out in detail in an Ashford poll in 2022, when the DUP faced the same challenge from the TUV that it does today. You can read more about that poll and it’s implications here https://sluggerotoole.com/2022/01/09/skating-on-thin-ice-the-lurking-cracks-that-could-open-beneath-the-dup/
An election reflecting this poll could rob the DUP of its dominance and leave it prey to the divisions within.
UUP
All UUP Assembly seats would probably be safe on these figures, although there would be little chance of any gain. Modest council gains could be possible.
SINN FÉIN
They have been losing ground consistently since their August peak, this time by 2% points. That leaves them 3% below their Assembly total and a massive 5% down on the last council elections. In an Assembly election that could cost them at least 1 seat and up to 3 on a bad day, but would certainly cost them more on local Councils.
They might take heart from the thought that they were last this low in a LucidTalk Assembly poll back in April 2022 a month before hitting 29% in the election. But then they could rally voters behind the cause of defeating the DUP for the prize of First Minister. This time the DUP looks a far less formidable opponent.
SDLP
They should be pleased to have held on to the 11% that they achieved in the last poll, although they will be disappointed not to have profited from Sinn Féin’s loss. Nevertheless, that SF drop does increase the swing from SF to the SDLP. In the last poll that was 1.8%. Not enough to promise the party more seats, but good enough to fortify their endangered ones. Again, we won’t know where exactly how much this poll boosts that swing until we see the full tables. But it will be at least 2.0% or even nearly 3%.
That could put an SF seat in Fermanagh South Tyrone in the mix. The notional swing required by the SDLP would be 3.2%, but the effective swing based on SF’s actual candidate balancing in 2022 is lower at 2.6%.
The next lowest target for the party would be North Belfast. A 4.6% notional swing would definitely give an SF seat to the SDLP. But given SF balancing any swing above 4% could produce a three-way contest between the SDLP, Alliance and the second SF candidate.
ALLIANCE
The difference between 13% and 14% is essentially meaningless in polling terms. What is significant is that the poll is showing them flat over the last nine months, back exactly where they were in the last Assembly and Council elections. This would mean that they would be expected to come out of the Assembly and Council elections in roughly the same position as they went into them.
GREEN
Although I keep saying that a 1% movement is essentially meaningless (since we do not know if it is mainly a real increase or the effect of rounding of a 0.1% movement) it will be motivational for the Greens. It might suggest that some of the lost SF support is coming their way. In itself, it is not enough to suggest that they are likely to return to the Assembly chamber.
AONTÚ
They too may have benefited from Sinn Féin’s loss. In which SF could reasonably expect to get most of them back via transfers.
PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT
No change for PBP, but a weaker Sinn Féin would reinforce PBP’s chances of retaining its West Belfast seat.
DESIGNATION TOTALS
There was some discussion in the comments section in February about the total vote shares for the three designations, as shown in the poll. The figures published in the BT do not cover all the minor parties or independents. That means there is a gap of unidentified votes. To avoid confusion, I have given them their own chart.
LucidTalk normally break these down into unionist, nationalist and neutral in their tables which are published about 7 to 10 days later. Recently the majority of these have been unionist (which we might expect since they include voters for the Independent Unionist Claire Sugden, the PUP the Conservatives and, before the Westminster election, Ind Unionist Alex Easton). In February the remainder were neutrals.
Here are the complete figures up to February.
A reminder that I always classify Assembly parties by their own designation. PBP has therefore been included with Others.
AN EXPLANATION OF SWING
Swing is not the increase or decrease in one party’s vote, it is a measure of the relative change in support between two parties. The best way to understand it is to consider three examples.
- If Party A gains 3% while Party B drops 3%, they have moved 6% points apart. The effect is the same as if 3% of voters had moved directly from Party B to Party A. The swing is 3%.
- If instead Party A gains 4% while Party B drops 2%, they have again moved 6% points apart. The effect is the same as if 3% of voters had moved directly from Party B to Party A. Again, the swing is 3%.
- Or is Party A gains 8% while Party B gains 2%, they have still moved 6% points apart. The effect is still the same as if 3% had moved directly from B to A. So once again the swing is 3%.
Michael Hehir is a retired sales and marketing manager. He studied in Northern Ireland but now lives between England and Italy.
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