At the district level, AKD of NPP has the highest vote share in 15 districts and SP of SJS had the highest vote share in 7 districts not counting the 3 merged districts of Kilinochchi with Jaffna and Vavuniya, Mannar, Mullaitivu as the Vanni District – in actual fact.
SP leads in 7 electoral districts (Jaffna, Vanni, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Ampara, Badulla and Nuwaraeliya) and 10 districts in total. The districts are Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Vavuniya, Mannar, Mullaitivu, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Ampara, Badulla and Nuwaraeliya.

In Jaffna district the 1st place was taken by P. Ariyanethiran contesting as an Independent formally but presenting himself as a common Tamil candidate.

• The 2nd place was taken by AKD in Ampara, Moneragala, Trincomalee in the districts that SP won. 
• The 2nd place was taken by P. Ariyanethiran in Killinoochci  and Mullaitivu. 
• The 2nd place was taken by RW in Batticaloa, Nuwara Eliya, Vavuniya, Mannar. 

The obvious interpretations of the spatial distributions are following 

1. AKD has won nearly all districts previously won by Gotabaya and Mahinda Rajapakshas in previous elections in 2015 and 2019. 
2. The SJB due to its alliances with TNA / ITAK has won the Northern and Eastern Province Districts and due to its alliances with UPCF and NUW won in the Badulla and Moneragala Districts. 
3. The RW coalition placed 3rd overall but has shown relatively strength in Nuwara Eliya, which may be attributed to its affiliation with CWC of the Thondamans.  The coalition with the EPDP may have helped in its relatively stronger showing in Mannar and Vavuniya. The spatial distribution of RW support shadows that for SP with the above exceptions. 
4. P. Ariyanethiran has shown show strength in the Northern Districts in particular
5. NR of the SLPS placed a poor 4th with strength only in the deep south districts particularly  Hambantota – here too not placing in the top tier. There is a dramatic drop in voting across all districts for the Rajapksha candidate compared to previous elections. 
6. Dilith Jayaweera placed next with 0.92% of the votes and he did not place well in the Northern and Eastern districts or in the Badulla and Nuwara Eliya districts. The spatial distribution of his vote share were similar to that of SLPS / NR but showing more strength in urban Colombo district and weaker showing elsewhere particularly n the deep south. 

The district maps also show a divergence in terms of languages spoken. AKD has done worse in districts with high percentages of Tamil speakers.  

More granular analysis by electorates can shed more light. Even in bilingual electorates such as in Northern, Central and West Colombo, AKD has  placed 2nd. There are  several electorates in Ratnapura, Kegalle, Kandy and Matale too where AKD has placed 2nd while the overall district may have gone to him. 

Apart from Language, Race too may have been factors driving voting patterns with 

Tamils, Muslims and Malaiyaha Tamils voting less favorably for AKD. A detailed analysis needs to be done to parse how these racial groups may have differed but just the visual analysis does not show much differences among these groups – thus language may be an adequate explainer. 

As for breaking this distribution by religion, Christianity is the group that cuts across races but here – in the Christian / RC areas around places with impacts from the Easter Attacks, there is preference for AKD – maybe due to the failure to complete inquiries into the Attacks. However, in the Tamil Christian / Catholic areas, one does not see a strong preference towards AKD. 

From this analysis, there is a general pattern 

• The Minorities who speak Tamil voted for SP or PA in the majority. Separate calculations (to be written up) show that less than 10% of the minorities voted for AKD while the majority of the Sinhalese voted for AKD. 
• Language may be the best explainer of the distribution – if they speak Tamil then the voting differs. 
• Race or Religion may not trump language as the explainer. 
• AKD vote patterns mirrors that of past Rajapaksha patterns 
• The role of NR and DJ are similar to AKD but since the vote share is really small its not adequate for further analysis. 
• DJ does not surpass NR anywhere but comes close only in the Colombo District. If the SLPP cleaved between the core Rajapaksha and the Viyathmaga dominated groups, then neither groups do well. 

We have assumed the relative high spending of SP, RW, DJ campaigns did not influence the outcomes. Nor was differentiation based on gender. There are some distinctions shown by government officials and the military voting and that shall be addressed separately. 

We are left with the following questions 

1. why did RW have such relative strength in the Northern, Eastern and Hill country Districts. Those experienced politicians in the secondary parties in the  SJS coalition have identified his negative roles in relation to their communities. 
2. what explains the differences in voting patterns between RW and SJB in the Eastern and Western sides of the Northern Province. 
3. Can the voting of the different Ethnic groups be distinguished?