| 2016 result DUP 13,446 (41.7%, -2.5%) 3 seats UUP 4,987 (15.5%, +5.1%) 1 seat UKIP 681 (2.1%, -0.1%) Conservatives 672 (2.1%) TUV 610 (1.9%) Alliance 5,399 (16.8%, -1.8%) 1 seat Green 4,109 (12.7%, +4.8%) 1 seat Independent 1,415 (4.4%) NI Labour 177 (0.5%) SDLP 426 (1.3%, -1.4%) Sinn Féin 307 (1.0%, no change) | 2017 candidates @Gordon Dunne (DUP) @Alex Easton (DUP) @Alan Chambers (UUP) William Cudworth (UUP) Frank Shivers (Cons) @Stephen Farry (Alliance) @Steven Agnew (Green) Chris Carter (Ind) Melanie Kennedy (Ind) Gavan Reynolds (Ind) Caoimhe McNeill (SDLP) Kieran Maxwell (SF) |
All six MLAs elected in 2016 are standing again, but Peter Weir of the DUP has transferred to the neighbouring constituency of Strangford. There are only two women among the 12 candidates. The DUP are defending three seats with 2.5 quotas here and, crucially, only two candidates; Alliance are defending theirs with just over a full quota, the UUP are defending theirs with just over one full quota, and the Greens start with 0.8 of a quota. In 2016 there were 3.8 Unionist quotas and 0.1 of a quota for the Nationalist parties.
On the face of it, therefore, the most likely outcome is that the DUP hold two seats easily, having already conceded their third, and the remaining three incumbents also hold theirs. But this is a very fissile and sometimes volatile constituency, which has been represented at Westminster by independents or micro-parties for thirty of the last forty years, so anything is possible. (And by "anything" I guess I mean a resurgent UUP taking one of the non-aligned seats.)