Exit poll suggests tight contest in Assembly election

David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists and the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists are running neck-and-neck in a tight Northern Ireland Assembly Election contest, an exit poll claimed today.

The poll, which surfaced two hours before counting for the Assembly’s 108 seats got under way across Northern Ireland, also put Sinn Féin four points ahead of its rival nationalist party, the SDLP.