Although Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe received more than 500,000 preference votes from Colombo, he failed to surpass the preferential vote percentage of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the 2015 General Election.

Wickremesinghe received 500,566 preferences while the UNP polled 640,743 votes. Thereby, 78 percent of UNP voters gave one preference to Wickremesinghe. Meanwhile, Rajapaksa received 423,529 preferences while the UPFA polled 474,124 votes. The percentage of UPFA voters who gave a preference vote to Rajapaksa was 89 percent.

UNP Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa managed to obtain the preference of 84 percent of UNP voters in Hambantota. Premadasa gained 112,645 preferences while the UNP polled 134,433 votes.