Despite winning back votes, DUP to lose seat – poll
THE DUP is on course to recover some of the votes it lost in last year's European election – but is likely to lose South Antrim to Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey, a poll suggests.
The poll, carried out by local polling company LucidTalk over the weekend for political website Slugger O'Toole, puts support for the DUP on 23.5 per cent, up considerably from the 18.1 per cent it won last year.
According to the poll, support for the Conservatives and Unionists sits at 16.8 per cent – virtually the same as its performance last year – while the TUV's share is put at 8.7 per cent, down from 13.7 in last year's election.
Sinn Fein's share of the vote appears unchanged on 26 per cent.
The SDLP drops from 16.2 per cent last year to 12.5 per cent, although that is concentrated on the three seats it is defending.
Support for Alliance – always greater in polls than at the ballot box – is given as 8.5 per cent, compared to 5.5 per cent at last year's election.
The Greens are on 1.2 per cent while the PUP is on one per cent – although exclusively concentrated on East Belfast.
The telephone poll of 360 individuals across six constituencies was carried out on Friday and Saturday. It has a higher margin of error – up to 2.8 per cent – than national polls with larger sample sizes.
The poll found stronger support for the TUV in North Antrim, South Antrim, Lagan Valley and East Antrim than in other areas.
From the Province-wide figures, LucidTalk director Bill White extrapolated how parties would perform in individual seats, something which he said came with a greater margin of error.
Based on the polling data, he predicted that the DUP's William McCrea will lose South Antrim to Sir Reg and that independent unionist Rodney Connor will narrowly take Fermanagh/South Tyrone from Sinn Fein's Michelle Gildernew.
Upper Bann and North Antrim were listed as "too close to call", being within the poll's margin of error, although Ian Paisley Jnr was narrowly ahead in North Antrim.
He also predicted that DUP leader Peter Robinson will narrowly retain his East Belfast seat.
Mr White said: "The poll showed a larger than expected number of unionists – up to 15 per cent – who will vote but are undecided about who to vote for.
"The party figures take into account this large number of undecided unionist voters, and forecast how they will eventually vote on May 6 – this forecast is based on previous election performance and strong regional factors.
"However this sector is still there to win and if the three unionist parties can capture the largest block of this 'undecided' vote then the figures for the three unionist parties could vary by two or three per cent."
Mr White, who formerly worked for national polling company YouGov, is chairman of South Belfast Ulster Unionist association but said that had no bearing on his company's poll.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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