#AE17 Newry and Armagh: SF likely to lose third seat

Newry and Armagh includes most of the old County Armagh plus the town of Newry. 59.1% of the vote delivered four Nationalist MLAs in 2015, and 35.0% (counting in the votes for independent candidate and former DUP MLA Paul Berry) got Unionists two.

2016 result
DUP 7,980 (16.7%, +3.6%) 1 seat
UUP 6,745 (14.1%, -4.6%) 1 seat
UKIP 315 (0.7%)

Independents 2,603 (5.5%)
CISTA 1,032 (2.2%)
Alliance 493 (1.0%)
Green (NI) 335 (0.7%)

Sinn Féin 19,514 (40.9%, +0.1%) 3 seats
SDLP 8,698 (18.2%, -5.3%) 1 seat

2017 candidates
@William Irwin (DUP)
@Danny Kennedy (UUP)

Jackie Coade (Alliance)
Rowan Tunnicliffe (Green)
Emmet Crossan (CISTA)

@Justin McNulty (SDLP)
@Cathal Boylan (SF)
@Megan Fearon (SF)
@Conor Murphy (SF)

There are only nine candidates here (nowhere else has fewer than eleven), including all six incumbents but only two women. SF are defending three seats with 2.5 quotas; the SDLP have 1.1 quotas, the DUP almost exactly 1 quota, and the UUP 0.8 of a quota. In 2016 there were 2.1 Unionist quotas and 3.6 Nationalist quotas. Given those figures, SF’s third seat looks tenable only in the event of an SDLP collapse.