DUP leader Gavin Robinson has called for closer electoral co-operation between unionist parties ahead of the 2027 Assembly and council elections, against a backdrop of polling that places the DUP on 15%.
In the BBC News NI report supplied for this article, Robinson says unionist parties should work constructively, encourage voters to continue their preference votes to other pro-union candidates and avoid constituencies and electoral areas being flooded with candidates. He argues that unionism should not “gift wrap” seats to Sinn Féin, the SDLP or Alliance.
DUP down from 21.3% to polling at 15%
The electoral backdrop is important. At the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election, the DUP secured 21.3% of first-preference votes and returned 25 MLAs. The Summer 2026 LucidTalk tracker places the DUP at 15%. That is a 6.3 percentage-point difference from the party’s 2022 election result.
That comparison needs a qualification: a poll is a snapshot of voting intention, while the 2022 figure is an actual election result. It would therefore be wrong to say automatically that the DUP has ‘lost 6.3% of its voters’. What the figures do show is that the party’s current polling position is materially below its 2022 vote share.
The Summer 2026 polling picture
| Party | Assembly voting intention |
| Sinn Féin | 22% |
| UUP | 16% |
| DUP | 15% |
| SDLP | 13% |
| TUV | 12% |
| Alliance | 10% |
| Green Party | 5% |
| Aontú | 3% |
| People Before Profit | 2% |
LucidTalk says the poll was conducted online from 17-19 July 2026. It received 3,043 responses, with 1,050/1,051 responses used in the final weighted, Northern Ireland-representative sample. LucidTalk reports a margin of error of +/-2.3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
The one-point difference between the UUP at 16% and DUP at 15% is therefore within the stated margin of error. The poll is better read as evidence of a much more competitive three-way unionist landscape than as proof of a definitive ranking between the UUP and DUP.
Robinson: do not ‘gift wrap’ seats
The significance of Robinson’s intervention is that it goes beyond a general appeal for unionist unity. The DUP leader is calling for practical electoral co-operation: managing candidate numbers and encouraging preference transfers between pro-union candidates.
“I am asking that, collectively, we do not gift wrap seats to Sinn Féin, the SDLP or Alliance that unionism could otherwise win.”
This is not, at this stage, a confirmed DUP-UUP-TUV electoral pact. It is a call for co-operation, and the eventual form of any agreement – if one is reached – remains unknown.
Why STV changes the argument
Assembly and council elections in Northern Ireland use the Single Transferable Vote system. Voters rank candidates rather than casting a single vote. That means a fragmented first-preference vote does not necessarily have the same effect as vote-splitting under Westminster’s first-past-the-post system.
A DUP voter can, for example, give later preferences to UUP or TUV candidates. If those transfers are strong, unionist votes can remain within the wider bloc through later stages of a count. Candidate numbers, vote management, elimination order and transfer behaviour therefore matter alongside headline first-preference percentages.
Why the DUP is talking about co-operation now
The 2022 Assembly election left the DUP clearly ahead of its unionist competitors: the party won 21.3% and 25 seats, compared with 11.2% and nine seats for the UUP, while the TUV won 7.6% and one seat. The Summer 2026 polling environment is much more compressed, with UUP 16%, DUP 15% and TUV 12%.
Taken together, those three polling figures equal 43%. But STV seats cannot be calculated by simply adding those percentages together. How that support is distributed constituency by constituency, how many candidates each party fields and how voters transfer will determine the effect.
The obstacle: the parties are also competitors
Any co-operation would have to reconcile a basic tension: the DUP, UUP and TUV share a pro-union constitutional position, but they are also competing directly for many of the same voters. UUP leader Jon Burrows has spoken of returning his party to its former position as the largest unionist party. It also records TUV leader Jim Allister’s criticism of the DUP over its return to Stormont and the post-Brexit trading arrangements.
Those differences do not rule out local or transfer-based co-operation, but they mean Robinson’s call should not be reported as an agreed three-party pact.
What this could mean for Stormont 2027
For election modelling, Robinson’s intervention introduces an additional variable: unionist transfer efficiency. A constituency model based only on each party’s headline first-preference share could miss the effect of stronger cross-party transfers or deliberate candidate management.
| Scenario | What it means |
| Normal competition | DUP, UUP and TUV field candidates according to their own strategies; transfers occur without a formal arrangement. |
| Transfer co-operation | Parties still compete but encourage supporters to continue preferences to other pro-union candidates. |
| Candidate management | One or more parties limit candidate numbers in selected constituencies or DEAs to reduce internal competition. |
Newry & Armagh: why this matters locally
Newry & Armagh returned three Sinn Féin MLAs, one DUP MLA and one SDLP MLA in 2022. The constituency therefore currently has a single unionist Assembly seat. For Clanrye’s 2027 analysis, stronger DUP-UUP-TUV transfer discipline would need to be tested separately from each party’s first-preference support.
The nationalist side is also changing. Aontú has confirmed Roisin Mulgrew as its Newry & Armagh Assembly candidate, adding another variable to a constituency where Sinn Féin currently holds three of the five seats. The eventual candidate line-up and count transfers will be essential before drawing conclusions about the fifth seat.
The bigger story: a more fragmented unionist electorate
The most defensible conclusion from the polling and Robinson’s speech is not that a unionist pact already exists. It is that the electoral environment within unionism has changed markedly since 2022. The latest LucidTalk poll has only four percentage points separating the UUP, DUP and TUV.
Robinson is therefore arguing that competition between unionist parties should not translate into fewer unionist representatives. Whether the UUP and TUV share his assessment – and what practical arrangements, if any, follow – will be important questions before the May 2027 elections.
ENDS