Constituency Focus: Strangford



Strangford is another stronghold for the DUP and Unionism at large. It takes in the outskirts of East Belfast and much of mid Down and the Ards Peninsula with Newtownards being the major town in the constituency. The SDLP have finished as runners up in every Assembly election since 1998. Interestingly the town of Strangford is not actually in the constituency. 

 

Current seats

The DUP currently holds 3 seats, the only constituency where it does, with the UUP having 1. The final seat is held by Alliance. The DUP’s Jim Shannon has been MP for the constituency since 2010 while the seat has been held by the DUP since 2001. 

 

Current bloc quotas

Unionism hit a low of 57.2% in the 2019 council elections and had a high of 74.7% in the 2019 Westminster election. Jim Shannon managed to win 62% of that vote himself. 

 

Nationalism is not close to a quota here with results ranging from as low as 6.8% to a high of 11%. Even with that high it would take very favourable transfers from non-aligned candidates to get ahead of their rivals.

 

The non-aligned bloc had a low of 16.3% (not even an assembly quota) in 2017 to as high as 30.5% in the last Westminster election. 

 

Recent electoral trends

Alliance have continued their growth here, as seen in the other Greater Belfast constituencies. Much of that growth has come at the expense of Unionism with some tactical Nationalist voting in the first past the post elections. The DUP have lost some ground to Alliance but comfortably remain the largest party.

 

Candidates

The DUP are defending their 3 seats with Michelle McIlveen, Peter Weir and Harry Harvey running. The UUP are once again fielding 2 candidates, they are Mike Nesbitt and Phillip Smith. Stephen Cooper is standing for the TUV. 

 

Alliance have 2 candidates as they target a gain, incumbent Kellie Armstrong is running alongside Nick Mathison. Maurice McCartney will represent the Green Party. There is one independent on the ballot paper, Ben King, who describes himself as being, ‘populist left’ on his Twitter profile. I assume this means he will not designate as either Unionist or Nationalist should he be successful. 

 

Conor Houston is replacing Joe Boyle as the SDLP candidate and Rósié McGivern will represent Sinn Féin. 

 

Battles

The DUP should have 2 safe seats with the UUP and Alliance seats also looking safe. The 5th seat is the one up for grabs. If Alliance can repeat their 2019 Westminster performance then the seat is theirs. The TUV will hope to benefit from voter dissatisfaction with the DUP and so will feel strongly in contention as well. The UUP are fielding a 2ndcandidate and either feel they do not have enough votes for Nesbitt to comfortably get elected or believe there is a real chance for a gain. Commentators are suggesting the SDLP will finally get over the line here, and Conor Houston is running a high profile campaign, however recent polling looks grim for the SDLP and with Alliance polling so well it may starve the SDLP of natural transfers which they need to get over the line. If Alliance balance their first preferences well then it could be curtains for Houston early on. 

 

Issues

Strangford is an odd constituency which takes in lots of towns and villages that may seem more at home in a neighbouring constituency and so has a unique blend of issues. There have been issues with school closures meaning more pupils have had to rely on the Strangford ferry to get to school. Like many other strongly Unionist constituencies the NI Protocol has faced significant opposition. 

 

Predictions 

The DUP should hold 2 of their 3 seats comfortably, Alliance and the UUP should both be comfortable for their seats. The 5th seat is the tricky one and I think Alliance are slightly better placed than anyone else to win it with their ability to draw transfers from across the board. There is a chance of Unionism holding 4 seats here, if that happens it will probably signal good news for Unionism across the province as it would suggest polling is slightly underestimating the bloc. 

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