#AE Open thread: Mid Ulster (#mul11)…

There’s a profile of Mid Ulster in today’s Irish News, which takes the view that of all the candidates of the established parties in the field it is the Ulster Unionist candidate Sandra Overend who is most likely to miss out in a squeeze for four seats by Sinn Fein. In truth, everyone else is either playing it cool or outright defensively. By my imperfect calculations, Sinn Fein would need slightly better than a perfect storm here to do the …

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#AE11 Open Thread: Upper Bann (#uban11)

Upper Bann is one of the more interesting constituencies in a generally dull race. It’s been a cockpit for a lot of discontent on both sides of the communal divide. The long-running Drumcree affair was a running sore in the early days of the peace process, and only last week the sitting SDLP candidate Delores Kelly was attacked in the Kilwilkee Estate in Lurgan. It currently stands at four unionist seats and two nationalist, one of  each stripe. On the …

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Open Thread (#ae11): East Antrim (#ean11)…

Okay, partly on foot of yesterday’s UTV tweet up in Ballymena, we flip over to East Antrim where the lost Nationalist seat is likely to re-emerge. The open question is whether Sinn Fein’s Oliver McMullen or the SDLP’s Justin McCamphill is the beneficiary. The legal challenge to McMullen currently in train his residency qualification statement that his principal or only place of work is in the Larne council area won’t do him any harm in terms of nationalist sentiment, particularly …

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#AE11 Open thread: South Belfast (#bels11)

As Alan points out in South Belfast there are eleven parties standing candidates… but none of them are independents. Again, there’s not likely to be much play in the overall game.. It will be worth looking at Conall McDevitt’s (occasionally of this parish) performance who is standing for election for the first time having been co-opted for Carmel Hannah’s seat. He’s had plenty of time to build his provenance there, so he should be safe. Keep an eye on Máirtín …

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#AE11 Open Thread: Foyle (#FO11)…

Foyle is probably one of the last few places where there is still a significant and meaningful divide between ‘nationalist’ and ‘Republican’ in the local electorate. In 2005 Sinn Fein’s Westminster candidate, Mitchel McLaughlin predicted a significant win for himself. In the end he was sorely disappointed. The clash between the SDLP and Sinn Fein will take place in what have been up to now been mutually exclusive electorates. As John has already noted the continuing candidacy of Eamonn McCann …

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#AE11 Open Thread: Strangford (#str11)…

Okay, bit of a break there. I do want to get round to Foyle, since it is the only constituency I’ll be visiting on our #UTVtrip tweet up odyssey around Northern Ireland. As the Derry Wans might say, I’ll be leaving the best till last. Instead, I’m going to Strangford next, a place where boundary changes may force a couple of seat changes. There’s a couple of thousand Unionist voters coming in the south and maybe about 1k nationalist voters. …

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#AE11 Open Thread: North Down (#ndo11)

Every year, North Down is a lottery. It has in the deep past been a bit of a no go for the DUP. That broke with the defection of Peter Weir from the UUP. The party now have two MLAs going into this election with a third candidate who has a chance of picking up a third. But this IS North Down, so nothing is certain. Brian Wilson’s Green seat looks hard for Stephen Agnew to hang on to, despite …

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#AE11 Open Thread: West Tyrone (#wt11)

I had thought about moving on to Foyle, but considering the resignation of former MLA Eugene McMenamin (after he failed to get selected as the official SDLP candidates), things have gotten nicely complicated over in West Tyrone. He’s expected to be one of two former SDLP candidates in the race. Ross Hussey is running this time for the UUP and may provide a much needed gain for the Ulster Unionists, probably at the expense of Alan Bresland of the DUP …

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#AE11 Open Thread: East Belfast (#bele11)

Okay, East Belfast is really interesting. Will we see two Alliance MLAs, after Naomi Long’s historic victory last year? Can Dawn Purvis hold on the seat she won against the odds four years ago without the backing of the PUP machine? What effect will Sammy Douglas have on the DUP ticket? And at Council level how will the UUP fair banking on two old stagers, Jim Rodgers and (the recently rewhipped) Ian Adamson alongside the rookie Stephen Warke. So what …

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#AE11 Open thread: South Down (#sdo11)…

Okay, we’re going to run a series of open threads on a number of constituencies throughout the campaign. I’ve picked up South Down first partly because of John McCallister’s uncharacteristically undisciplined outburst last week. When you consider there is a boundary change in the north of the constituency that could take 2k Unionist votes out of the equation, it must be a pretty tough hill climb for him  to get over the win line, not least because he was 2k …

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