New poll suggests Sinn Féin will become largest local govt party in Northern Ireland

Sinn Féin is on course to become the largest party in local government in Northern Ireland, a new poll has suggested.

The republican party will win 29.8% of first preference votes in this month’s council elections, a University of Liverpool-Institute of Irish Studies opinion poll for the Irish News suggests.

This puts it almost seven points clear of the DUP on 23%, with Alliance on 14.5%, the Ulster Unionist Party on 12.8%, the SDLP on 8.3% and the TUV on 5%. 

Voters in Northern Ireland will head to the polls on May 18 in the local government elections, the first electoral test since last year’s Stormont Assembly elections.

In that election, Sinn Féin emerged as the largest party in the Assembly for the first time.

The opinion poll suggests a repeat of that result in councils, with Sinn Féin increasing its support by 6.6% from the previous local government elections.

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s DUP, which is blocking the operation of the powersharing institutions as part of a protest over post-Brexit trading arrangements, has dipped slightly by 1.1% from the 2019 local government elections.

The council elections will use the single transferable vote (STV) system.

Almost half of Sinn Féin voters will transfer their second preference votes to the nationalist SDLP, the poll suggests.

However, it also indicates that the cross-community Alliance Party will pick up around two-thirds of SDLP transfers, with a quarter going to Sinn Féin. 

The survey suggested that more than half of DUP voters will give their second preference to the UUP, while 21% will give a second preference to the TUV.

The poll was carried out by SMR on behalf of The Irish News-University of Liverpool-Institute of Irish Studies. It surveyed the opinions of 1,013 Northern Ireland adults over the age of 18 between April 11-21. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.1%.

It follows a LucidTalk poll for the Belfast Telegraph earlier in the week that suggested the gap between the two largest parties was narrower. That poll put Sinn Fein on 29% and the DUP on 25%.