Victories of newcomers at election boosted by women’s vote
WOMEN are more likely to vote for the Alliance Party and the SDLP, analysis of the general election result has shown.
Both parties enjoyed a successful election.
The SDLP secured two seats — South Belfast and Foyle.
Party leader Colum Eastwood took the Foyle seat from Sinn Fein’s Elisha McCallion with a thumping 17,000 majority, while Claire Hanna gained a majority of nearly 15,500 over the DUP’s Emma Little-Pengelly.
Alliance’s Stephen Farry took the North Down seat and saw it move into third position in terms of party vote share.
Sinn Fein and the DUP saw their share of the vote plunge by 6.7% and 5.4% respectively, when compare to the 2017 poll.
Belfast-based polling company LucidTalk carried out analysis of last week’s results
It showed 61% of the Alliance vote was made up of female voters, while 57% of the SDLP’s was female.
Alliance’s female vote was actually a drop of 2% from the 2017 election, while the SDLP’s female vote increased by 3%.
The DUP, Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists all had more male support, making up 59%, 55% and 54% of their vote respectively.
The results were roughly in line with voting patterns in the 2017 general election for those parties, when 61% of the DUP’s support was men, while male voters made up 59% of Sinn Fein’s vote and 57% for the Ulster Unionists.
Other figures looked at general election voting patterns from last week compared with the European Union referendum in 2016.
Most DUP and Sinn Fein voters fell in line with party policies.
Just 7% of the Brexit-supporting DUP voters last week had opted to Remain in 2016.
Only 11% of Sinn Fein voters had backed Leave, in contrast to the party’s pro-Remain stance.
There was more of a split among Alliance voters with 26% having voted to Leave in the referendum.