When the DUP gathers at La Mon on 18 and 19 September, it does so in a markedly different position from the one it occupied at its last conference. The latest LucidTalk tracker for the Belfast Telegraph, conducted in mid-July, put the party on 15%, below the 21.3% first-preference share that returned 25 MLAs in 2022. Sinn Féin led on 22%, with the SDLP on 13% and the TUV on 12%. But the number that matters most to the DUP is the one immediately above it: the Ulster Unionists on 16%.
The DUP has been the largest unionist party since it overtook the UUP in 2003, and that position has been central to its electoral appeal. For many unionist voters, backing the biggest party has been the most straightforward way of guaranteeing a strong unionist voice. That assumption is now being tested from two directions at once. The UUP has not polled at 16% since the summer of 2021, and its new leader, Jon Burrows, a former senior police officer who was co-opted to the Assembly last year and took over in January, has been clear that he intends the party to compete for the leadership of unionism again. Jim Allister’s TUV is polling above its 2022 level, arguing that the DUP conceded too much on the Irish Sea border and should not have returned to Stormont on the terms it accepted in February 2024. A message calibrated to answer one of those challenges tends to assist the other.
The party also arrives at conference with the continuing fallout from the Jeffrey Donaldson case. Donaldson was convicted at Newry Crown Court in June of 18 offences, including rape, against two women when they were children. His knighthood has since been annulled. The wider political question is now what was known within the party before his arrest in 2024. Gavin Robinson MP has commissioned an independent review, led by former police officer Jim Gamble, which he has described as unprecedented. Its findings will be closely watched, and conference gives the leadership an opportunity to set out how it intends to address the issue.
The DUP’s electoral position cannot be explained by that case alone, and nor is it for want of a record in government. Pivotal’s tracker on the Executive’s performance, published on 1 September, credits Paul Givan MLA with progress on the TransformED programme, on SEN reform and on teacher workload, noting the first TransformED annual report’s finding of tangible progress across curriculum, assessment and qualifications. Gordon Lyons MLA is credited with the Warm Healthy Homes Strategy and with 1,765 new social housing starts in 2025-26, a 17% increase on the previous year. Neither record is unqualified. The same report notes that four in five teachers consider the pace of reform has made their workload unmanageable, and that the social housing waiting list has passed 50,000. The point being that both ministers have more to point to than the polling would suggest.
The difficulty is that this is not translating into support. Pivotal cites LucidTalk polling showing that only 27% of respondents felt the return of Stormont had made a positive difference to their lives, and voters tend not to separate one department’s performance from the Executive’s collective record. The report also finds the Good Jobs Bill, a landmark Programme for Government commitment, stuck in a stand-off between the two largest Executive parties. That complicates the argument, made recently by Givan, that the DUP delivers while others play grievance politics. More fundamentally, the voters the TUV is targeting are judging the DUP on the constitutional question rather than on childcare or housing, and competent administration does not answer that argument directly.
The polling inevitably raises questions about the Assembly election, though there is a long way to go. Analysis published on Slugger O’Toole suggested that a uniform swing on the July figures could see the DUP fall to as few as 13 seats, against a notional 25 to 28 on current boundaries. That is one scenario rather than a forecast, constituency results often diverge sharply from a uniform swing, and the DUP recovered ground during the campaign in 2022. Transfers may matter more. The party has traditionally benefited from transfers from both UUP and TUV voters, particularly where it fielded the strongest unionist candidate, and any loosening of that pattern would be felt in the marginals. Turnout will matter too, with Assembly and council elections falling on the same day in May.
Robinson’s answer has been unionist co-operation. Speaking in Ballymena at the end of August, he argued that a failure to co-operate carries a price. He has said before that unionism can win the next Assembly election if the three main unionist parties are prepared to work together. In a system where transfers and constituency-level contests decide outcomes, that logic holds. The obstacle is that neither of the other parties has an obvious incentive to accept it. The UUP is in its strongest polling position for years, and the TUV is competing directly for the same voters as the DUP.
Robinson’s speech is therefore worth watching on three counts. First, whether co-operation remains a broad appeal or hardens into a concrete proposal about agreed candidates in named constituencies. Second, how hard he leans on the ministerial record, which deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly MLA has defended robustly and which is stronger than the party’s standing implies. Lastly, whether he revives the First Minister argument that pulled soft DUP voters back in 2022. With Sinn Féin on 22%, he could instead argue that unionism is in a position to reclaim the post, a more optimistic pitch that depends on voters accepting the DUP is best placed to deliver it.
The question facing the DUP is not simply whether it remains the largest unionist party, but whether it can still persuade unionist voters that its size is the reason to back it. For more than two decades that position was self-reinforcing. The polling suggests it can no longer be assumed, though the party retains a substantial organisation, experienced representatives and eight months in which to make its case. Conference will not settle any of this, but it should give a clear indication of how Robinson intends to fight the election, and where he thinks the DUP’s place is in the next phase of unionist politics.