General Election 2024: DUP's Gregory Campbell holds East Derry after huge Sinn Fein surge

The DUP’s Gregory Campbell has held his East Londonderry seat by the skin of his teeth, making him the longest serving Westminster MP in Northern Ireland. 

Mr. Campbell has now held the East Londonderry seat, his adopted constituency with the 71-year-old currently living in the Waterside of the Foyle constituency, since 2001.

Winning the seat with 11,506  votes, he will once again represent East Londonderry in the House of Commons. 

The nearest challenger in this election was Kathleen Mc Gurk only 179 votes less than Mr. Campbell with 11,327 votes. This brought a recount but Mr. Campbell was able to fend off the challenge in this election.

Meanwhile attaining 5,260 votes was Cara Hunter placing them in third place for the seat. 

The DUP will be pleased to have maintained the seat as Sinn Fein had been edging closer with their Assembly performance in 2022, as the combined first preference vote for Sinn Féin's two candidates was just under 600 lower than the combined total for the DUP's two candidates.

But the DUP and Mr. Campbell was able to stave off any potential upset from any rival party or candidate.

The rest of the candidates finished in subsequent order with TUV’s Allister Kyle (4,363), Alliance’s Richard Stewart (3,734), UUP’s Glen Miller (3,412), Aontu’s Gemma Brolly (1,043), Green’s Jen McCahon (445) and NI Conservatives Claire Scull (187)

There were a total of 41,430 votes from an eligible electorate of 75,707. This was a 54.72% turn out.