According to polling, most people planning to cast a first preference vote for the UUP in May’s Assembly election will switch their vote to nationalists before they provide a transfer to other unionist parties.
Table 2 Nationalist Share of Vote (%), Assembly elections, 1998 – 2016 [...] In summary, of the parties elected, the UUP received most transferred votes (25%), followed by the DUP (22%), Sinn Féin (14%), SDLP (13%), Alliance (11%), Green Party (4%), TUV (3%) and People Before Profit Alliance (1%). [...] In contrast, Alliance, UUP, and the SDLP received the lion’s share of transfers from other parties (71%, 76% and 79% respectively). The DUP received 59% of its transfers from other parties.