#AE22 Constituency Profile: Upper Bann
ABOUT THE CONSTITUENCY
Upper Bann lies south of Lough Neagh and includes Lurgan, Portadown, Craigavon, Banbridge and Loughbrickland. It has the largest population and the largest registered electorate of the eighteen Assembly constituencies in Northern Ireland.
The Dickson Plan school transfer system operates in much of Upper Bann with post-primary school pupils attending Junior Highs before transferring to Senior High Schools without the use of the 11+/Transfer Test for academic selection.
PREVIOUS ELECTIONS
DUP vote went against the overall trend and increased by 1.7 percentage points between 2016 and 2017.
Sinn Féin saw their vote increase by 2.9 percentage points but still lost a seat in the new five seat configuration.
Alliance scored a record result at the 2019 Westminster election with 12.9% of the vote, doubling their best vote share in a previous Upper Bann Westminster or Assembly poll.
SDLP’s Dolores Kelly lost her seat to Sinn Féin at the 2016 election, regaining it 11 months later in the 2017 poll.
SINCE 2017
Diane Dodds replaced Carla Lockhart following her Westminster win in 2019.
THE DAY OF THE COUNT
Watch to see how the overall share of unionist and nationalist first preferences compares with 2017: 3.3 quotas amongst unionist parties gave them 3 seats, 2.3 quotas led to 2 seats.
Which designation will be hit hardest by any rise in votes for ‘other’ parties? (Alliance and Greens polled just over a third of a quota in 2017.)
COMMENTARY
Upper Bann is a fascinating contest this year with a three-cornered battle underway.
The DUP holds two seats in the constituency with both incumbent MLAs, Jonathan Buckley and Diane Dodds running for the party. Dodds was co-opted into the seat following her time as a Member of the European Parliament. She served as Economy Minister for 18 months before new DUP leader Edwin Poots replaced her with Paul Frew in June 2021. (24 days later, another change in DUP leadership ousted Frew in favour of Gordon Lyons.) Dodds has never before stood in Upper Bann, and this will be her first Assembly election contest since losing her Belfast West seat in 2007.
The UUP leader Doug Beattie is seeking to secure a third term in the Assembly and will have Glenn Barr running alongside him for the first time. Until 2017, the UUP held two seats in Upper Bann, but it is unlikely that they will regain the ground lost when Jo-Anne Dobson was not re-elected.
Likewise for Sinn Féin, incumbent John O’Dowd is standing again for the party with new running mate Liam Mackle, It is unlikely that two Sinn Féin candidates can get over the line in the five seat constituency.
How the final two seats fall in Upper Bann is anything but certain.
If the opinion polls are right and there is a significant swing away from the DUP, the party’s second seat in Upper Bann could be vulnerable.
SDLP’s Dolores Kelly is defending a seat she won back in 2017. Kelly is a political veteran and attempting to hold the SDLP’s position in the face of the decline in party support since 1998. Kelly is on a slender margin and got across the line on Alliance and UUP transfers in 2017, a definite beneficiary of the ‘Vote Mike and you get Colum’ policy.
Kelly is under real pressure from the Alliance candidate, Eoin Tennyson, whose record result for the party in Upper Bann at the most recent Westminster poll – coming third with 12.9% of the vote – makes him a favourite to win a seat if that momentum can be consolidated.
PREDICTIONS
One DUP, One Sinn Féin, One UUP
Last two seats are a battle between DUP, Alliance and the SDLP.