General Election: Tom Elliott confident of farming vote but Sinn Fein remain narrow favourites
The odds narrowly favour Sinn Fein retaining the Fermanagh and South Tyrone seat this week, but challenger Tom Elliott expects a strong farming vote which he hopes could deliver him an upset victory once again.
Incumbent Michelle Gildernew famously defeated united unionist candidate Rodney Connor by only four votes in 2010.
The subsequent united unionist candidate, the UUP’s Mr Elliott, defeated her by 530 votes in 2015.
Ms Gildernew took the seat back in 2017 by 875 votes, and Mr Elliott is once again her main challenger in 2019.
Ms Gildernew is standing on a clear anti-Brexit ticket and insists pro-Remain unionists – especially farmers – will vote for her.
“People are looking very carefully at the constitutional issue and considering which union they want to be part of,” she told the Irish Times.
But Mr Elliott, a farmer who describes himself as a ‘soft’ Brexiteer, said farmers are actually divided on Brexit and that a majority are actually Leave voters, especially amongst unionists.
”On top of that, unionists have largely unified against Boris’ deal,” he adds.
Mr Elliott has concerns about people illegally carrying information out of polling centres on election day: “We have reported it to the Electoral Office before.” And he is concerned about the rise of proxy voting, believing it is “open to abuse”.
Slugger O’Toole website editor Mick Fealty noted that in the last election, 1,707 proxy votes and 2,981 postal votes were issued in the area: the largest in an NI constituency.
The two biggest issues on the doors, Mr Elliott claimed, are the health service and abortion. “The state of the health service is being firmly left with Sinn Fein on the doors, for refusing to form a government. And in south Tyrone especially, abortion is a big concern to nationalists. I am the only pro-life candidate.”
In the local government election this year, unionists claimed 43.5% of the vote compared to the nationalist 42.7%.
And even though he lost narrowly to Ms Gildernew in 2017, Mr Elliott’s vote rose from 23,608 to 24,355.
However, since winning it by 43 votes in 2001, it is traditionally Ms Gildernew’s seat; she has won it four out of the five times she has stood.
Mr Fealty said he is “narrowly plumping” for her victory but that “the quietness of the campaign suits her opponent”. The other unknown, he said, is whether her absence from Westminster might play with nationalists wishing to register a complaint.
Commentator Alex Kane says the margins will, as ever, be tight. “My hunch is that Gildernew will stay ahead and retain the seat,” he said.
Sean Graham Bookmakers’s odds for Sinn Fein are 1/4 and UUP (5/2) with the other three candidates at 100/1; Matthew Beaumont (Alliance), Adam Gannon (SDLP), and Caroline Wheeler (Independent).