Unionists woke up feeling bruised yesterday morning, but some of the details of the results are not as bad for them as it seemed at first.

(Click here to read Ben Lowry on 10 less noticed aspects of the election results)

The unionist share of the overall vote, having fallen behind nationalists for the first time last year in the council elections, pulled ahead again on Thursday: 43% to 40%. A News Letter editorial on election morning talked about the importance of unionists winning this tally, which they did.

Unionists now have the same number of MPs at Westminster as they did in 2019, eight, while nationalists continue to have nine and Alliance still one. However, unionist representation in the Commons is now split four ways.

placeholder image — Unionist candidates won 43.1% of the overall vote, nationalists got 40.1% of the total

The DUP lost votes mainly to the TUV, who did not stand in 2019, but this time got one of their best-ever vote shares, at 6%. The Ulster Unionist vote share has stood still since 2019, but this time they have an MP, something they have not had since 2017 when their two 2015-elected MPs lost. Scroll all the way down for the key data:

• NI SEATS WON 2024 (2019):

Sinn Fein 7 (7)

DUP 5 (8)

SDLP 2 (2)

Alliance 1 (1)

UUP 1 (-)

TUV 1 (-)

Independent 1 (-)

• VOTES WON % 2024 (2019):

SF 210,891 27% (23%)

DUP 172,058 22.1% (31%)

SDLP 86,861 11.1% (15%)