By Faha
LucidTalk released an opinion poll on voter preferences for the 2022 Assembly election. It was conducted in January. The panel sample was a weighted sample of 2,925 likely voters (excluded undecided and nonvoters).
Voter preference is as follows:
Sinn Fein 25.13%
SDLP 10.71%
PBP 1.20%
Aontu 0.89%
Total Nationalist 37.93%
Alliance 14.02%
Green 3.01%
Other 1.61%
DUP 17.23%
UUP 14.02%
TUV 12.21%
Total Unionist 43.46%
The Other group would be mainly the smaller unionist parties such as PUP and Conservatives.
Any changes compared to the Autumn poll are 1% or less, which is well within the margin of error.
The religious background of the weighted sample of 2,925 was
Catholic 738 (25.23%)
Protestant 1,157 (39.56%)
None 804 (27.49%)
Other 225 (7.69%)
My only concern with the poll is the religious background weighting. It is unlikely that the Catholic population of Northern Ireland is only 25.23% as that would be a 20% decline from the 45% in the 2011 census. The actual census results will not be available until Autumn 2022.
Because of political developments in this past week the poll is already outdated. I expect that there will be a new poll no later than March to reflect the collapse of the Assembly and possibly an early election.