General Election: Sinn Féin continue to show well following Letterkenny tallies

Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty gained almost 3,000 first preference votes in Letterkenny, to continue his strong start in the general election race in the Donegal constituency.

Doherty picked up 23.4 per cent of the vote in Letterkenny, some 2,999 votes, to add to his healthy tally from Inishowen, which was the first count of the weekend.

In total, there was a turnout of 12,294 in the Letterkenny area with the Sinn Féin candidates in the top two. Doherty’s party colleague Padraig MacLochlainn picked up 1,740 (13.6 per cent), marginally ahead of Fianna Fáil’s Charlie McConalogue (13.5 percent), who got 1,724.

Nikki Bradley of Fine Gael has thus far picked up 1,022 first preferences (8 per cent), with 819 for Pat the Cope Gallagher (6.4 per cent); Mary T Sweeney from Aontu on 775 (6.1 per cent) and Charlie Ward from the 100% Redress Party has 1,589, which is 12.4 percent. Gerry McKeever, Independent, got 249 first preferences, a percentage of 1.9 per cent. The count in Milford is next up.