Hugging her five-year-old son dressed in tractor pyjamas, Carla Lockhart singled out her family’s support after being returned with a thumping majority to the Upper Bann seat in the UK general election.
Little Charlie had followed her around Craigavon count centre throughout the evening and while the DUP incumbent’s result was never in doubt, she acknowledged that her increased vote – she polled more than 21,000 votes - was “unbelievable” in the wake of boundary changes.
In an emotional victory speech shortly before 4am, she paid tribute to her late father who was her “biggest fan and an ever-present part of the canvass team”.
In what was a difficult night for the DUP – Lockhart took to the podium following the Lagan Valley result which saw her party colleague Jonathan Buckley lose to Alliance’s Sorcha Eastwood – the result was one of the party’s few bright spots.
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“I am truly blown away. To increase my vote with a reduced electorate is something that I never imagined,” the DUP’s only female MP said.
This was a constituency where the TUV had chosen not to field a candidate, with the party’s leader Jim Allister endorsing Lockhart over her opposition to the so-called Donaldson deal on post-Brexit trade that led to Stormont’s restoration.
Sinn Féin’s Catherine Nelson came in second after polling 14,236 votes, in what was a repeat of the 2019 line-up on results night – though with a different candidate.
Nelson, a former school teacher who was elected to the Upper Bann Assembly seat in 2016 before Stormont’s collapse in 2017, replaced the party’s high-profile infrastructure minister, John O’Dowd.
Ms Nelson said her party had made history in Upper Bann by increasing its vote share.
“That’s an increased vote for change,” she said.
Alliance’s Eoin Tennyson held his vote and came in third – again, a repeat of 2019 – albeit with a slight reduction, winning 6,322 votes.
The Ulster Unionist party’s Kate Evans was relegated to fourth place with 3,662 votes while Malachy Quinn of the SDLP received 1,496.
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