Could McClarty's candidacy put UUP seat under pressure in East Londonderry?
One of the batch of recent Ulster Unionist defectors, David McClarty, has decided to defend his Stormont seat as an independent. The East Londonderry MLA was the only UUP candidate to squeak home in that constituency last time, although he was still some 2,000 votes under quota.
His decision will give the party a major headache. It is running two of its brighter prospects in East Londonderry, Lesley Macaulay and David Harding, but there was always a suspicion that the Ulster Unionists would have to settle for one seat. McClarty’s involvement throws even that likelihood into considerable doubt.
In the 2010 general election Macaulay claimed a reasonably creditable total of 6,218 votes. This time round some of those voters will stick with McClarty and those who remain loyal to the Ulster Unionists will be spread across two candidates. Things are likely to get very tight and only the most indefatigable UUP optimist would predict a gain in East Londonderry this time round.
His decision will give the party a major headache. It is running two of its brighter prospects in East Londonderry, Lesley Macaulay and David Harding, but there was always a suspicion that the Ulster Unionists would have to settle for one seat. McClarty’s involvement throws even that likelihood into considerable doubt.
In the 2010 general election Macaulay claimed a reasonably creditable total of 6,218 votes. This time round some of those voters will stick with McClarty and those who remain loyal to the Ulster Unionists will be spread across two candidates. Things are likely to get very tight and only the most indefatigable UUP optimist would predict a gain in East Londonderry this time round.
Comments
Except that one of the three candidates won't be in the UUP!?
As I said it is down to transfers, in most ways it is the same electorate split 3 ways as before, and sitting on a 1.3 of a quota there is scope to split a bit but 2 seats is tricky but possible, if it dosn't turn into a slanging match and both agree to transfer to each other.
Not when you factor in where the other parties quotas are sitting.
Although the real mess will more likely be Upper Bann - running three with less than two quotas when faced with SF breathing down their neck was bad enough but if either Hamilton and/or Savage join in as well then there will be 4/5 trying to fish from the same pond.
"Chekov, firstly you should know better by now than to talk of Quotas at first preference stage, west Belfast tells us that"
But West Tyrone SDLP in 2007 tells us something different where their running of three candidates turned just over 1 quota into 0 seats.
Transfers don't just neatly run exactly as you want them to - voters are odd creatures and they won't just do exactly as their told so relying on an exact set of transferring between the 3 "UUP type" candidates is just crazy.
The UUP are sitting somewhere between 17 & 18% over the last two elections so lets not talk crap and just admit that two seats are utter fantasyland....
There are two clear nationalist quotas, one for SF and one SDLP so those will probably come home on the first count. The DUP have 2.5 quotas and the UUP have 1.3 quotas. The TUV will probably get less than half a quota.
Given that the DUP's 2.5 quotas will be split three ways and the UUP's 1.3 quotas will be split three ways too its just nonsense to think that in any real-world situation the UUP will win 2 seats.
What's far more likely to happen is the UUP winning zero seats with McClarty taking that seat and the DUP taking three.
The theory of transfers is far removed from the practice. Vote management is a bit of an art and a science - getting people to vote for a particular candidate for their 1st preference can be tricky enough, but once you try to tell people to vote right down a ticket there will always just be too many factors which cock things up and mean that votes start to evaporate away.
Mathematical theory and voting practice are two fundamentally different things. In the real world they don't. Their is normally at least 10% loss/leakage at each stage
Reading leahy's book showtime on fianna fail and it has a good section on they followed your theory of PR voting and how it cost them seats in election after election.
West Tyrone is interesting! And I dont think 2 candidates instead of 3 would have made a button of difference to the SDLP though, the Deeny factor (who you must admit is SDLPish) and the stupid infighting is what sunk them and not the multiple candidates.
McClarty has to beat both UUP candidates combined to retain his seat, and will also need tranfers from them, vice versa, they will probably need his transfers, so a slanging match wont serve either well.
Vote management is interesting to say the least!
And bad balancing in comparison with the candidates of other parties.
"McClarty has to beat both UUP candidates combined to retain his seat,"
Perfectly possible if he can match name recognition with a half-decent canvas op. The fact they all come from one end of the constituency helps none of their causes and Mcauley is an accident waiting to happen.
"and will also need tranfers from them, vice versa, they will probably need his transfers, so a slanging match wont serve either well."
The transfers that will be most likely floating about are TUV and Alliance.
"I dont think 2 candidates instead of 3 would have made a button of difference to the SDLP though"
You are mistaken, it made a bad situation worse.
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