DUP and the 2022 Assembly Election

Most expect this to be a brutal election for the DUP. Despite winning over 30% of the vote in the Westminster election of 2019 recent polling figures suggest the party could be heading for its worst ever performance for an Assembly election since 1998. 

 

The party knows this, support plummeted to around 18% in a LucidTalk poll early in 2021. This was, perhaps, the reason the party moved to replace Arlene Foster as leader. Under Edwin Poots support was even lower, leaving the DUP ranked third out of the Unionist parties. Jeffrey Donaldson has steadied the ship somewhat according to polling figures, but the party will still do well to break 20% in May’s election.

 

The attached graph shows the DUP’s performance across the last election cycle. A cycle that covered 1 Assembly election, 2 Westminster elections, 1 local government election and 1 European election. The DUP has polled from the low 20s to around 36% in all of these elections. The Westminster elections need to be considered in context. Several seats were fought under pacts or with other parties stepping aside. Both elections were also fought under their own context and of course they took place under the First Past the Post system meaning that transfers do not come into play. 2017s election was essentially a response to unionism’s poor performance in the preceding Assembly election while 2019 was dominated by the long drawn out Brexit saga. 2017 gave the DUP gains, and 2019 losses, including the defeat of the party’s then deputy leader, Nigel Dodds.

 

Having said that, the Westminster results are still useful when looking for trends in the results, we just have to be more cautious with certain constituencies. For the DUP, North Belfast is the main outlier, winning close to double the votes they received at the preceding assembly election. 

 

Determining where the DUP may have lost support is difficult. It seems some voters abandoned the DUP over their stance on Brexit between 2017 and 2019. There is evidence to suggest the DUP lost votes to Alliance in the three 2019 elections. On the other hand, current polling suggests the party is also being squeezed by the TUV. Interestingly, if you add the TUV poll results to the DUP’s then you are not far off where the DUP were in the last 2 Assembly elections. On that basis, we can assume that most of the DUP’s losses will be gains for the TUV.

 

We will look at Alliance’s potential gains in further detail in a future post. They could be targeting as many as 4 unionist seats but without taking more votes from unionist parties these seats will be tough to win.

 

Over the coming weeks we will find out more about who the DUP select to contest the upcoming election. North Belfast MLA William Humphrey will be retiring, he is likely to be replaced by popular Belfast Councillor Brian Kingston, though Antrim and Newtownabbey councillor Phillip Brett is also in the frame. The DUP will hope that selecting well known and popular representatives can bring some voters back and it is certainly possible this will happen. The Unionist vote has stabilised around 13% in West Belfast since Frank McCoubrey joined the party and became the nominee for Stormont and Westminster elections. Not only has he consolidated the DUP vote in the area but also galvanised and grown the overall Unionist vote. The DUP will hope for similar results when choosing replacements for those MLA’s who are standing down. Dianne Forsyth is replacing Jim Wells, having recently quit and rejoined the party during 2021s leadership changes. It will be interesting to see if the DUP follows a similar formula in nominating younger candidates who attract less controversial attention. 

 

Many commentators have suggested they don’t believe the TUV will win as many seats as polling suggests. If PR worked perfectly and the latest polling is an accurate indicator of how the election will go, then the TUV will be set for the same number of seats as the SDLP. Many believe this won’t happen because, aside from Jim Allister, nobody really knows who their members are. The DUP will hope that high profile candidates can win over enough of those voters considering voting for the TUV to hold most of their current seats.

 

The DUP have been close to perfect in vote balancing when they have needed to get it right in recent years. In 2016 the DUP secured 3 seats in North Belfast despite only having 2 quotas. They managed this by balancing all three candidates ahead of the competing unionists and winning their transfers. You do not need a quota to get elected, in the latter stages of the count you only need to have more votes than your rivals. The DUP will be hoping for a repeat of this, to have their candidates top of the unionists and rely on transfers to get them over the line. With both the UUP and TUV polling closely to each other, the DUP may only need to win around 20% or so to hold most of their seats. This is assuming the vast majority of TUV votes transfer to the DUP as second preference and the UUP votes transfer at the expected rate. If this turns out to be the case then Jeffrey Donaldson might actually be First Minister in May.

 

Don’t get carried away with this idea, Sinn Fein remain strong favourites to win the most seats in May but the DUP may just see a glimmer of hope at this stage. If Paul Givan’s resignation is a ploy to win back unionist voters then it is most likely to have won over those considering then TUV. The question is whether they have got the timing right, or whether their actions may push more voters towards the UUP or even Alliance and the Greens. 

 

As ever with Northern Ireland elections, everyday policy positions aren’t the most important thing for most voters. Instead PR and personality seems more important. Having said that, it is possible that certain emotive issues may stir voters to think more carefully about who to give their vote to. The DUP, strategically or not, have placed themselves as the best party to send a strong message for pro life voters. Paul Frew has also been prominent in opposing Covid Passports and this may attract voters who never would have considered the DUP in the past. On the other hand it may cause people to deliberately vote against the DUP, but, this has been happening for years already and I am not sure how much more of a negative impact this can have at this stage. Early signs in this (unofficially) extended campaign suggests parties will attack the DUP. The SDLP and Alliance are already doing this. I don’t see how this is a viable strategy if everyone is doing it, some voices will get lost and it may show a lack of confidence in their own party. Ultimately one party will emerge as the opponent of the DUP and the party people will vote for if they do wish to send a message to them. This has worked in the past but again, I m not sure how much more can come of such a strategy. 

 

This will be a difficult campaign for the DUP. They have hard working and locally popular representatives, but there is still a feeling of distrust and disappointment among their traditional voter base. The Northern Ireland Protocol is rejected by every elected unionist representative and the DUP has become the local scapegoat for voters seeking to remove it. There is a general feeling that not enough has been done and this is perhaps why the TUV are polling so well. No doubt the DUP will seek to point out the UUP’s somewhat weaker opposition to the Protocol in order to capitalise against strong challengers. Donaldson has a lot of hard work to do and lots of calls to get right over the next few months if he hopes to become First Minister. In fact he also needs to hope other parties make mistakes or fail to adequately get their vote out. 

 

My prediction is that the DUP will be the largest unionist party, but will fall short of Sinn Féin’s seat tally. A fairly safe prediction at this stage yes, but I do also think the parties will be closer than many currently believe. I would not be surprised to see the DUP eventually poll around 20% in May, they have beaten low expectations in the past. Whether or not Jeffrey Donaldson becomes First Minister will also depend on the performance of Sinn Féin and we will consider Sinn Féin’s position in the next post.