Election poll puts SNP falling short of Holyrood majority
The SNP is set to be denied a majority by unionist tactical voting in key seats in Thursday’s Holyrood election, a final projection by YouGov has found.
Last month, the Nationalists were on course to comfortably meet the 65-seat target John Swinney claims would deliver a new independence referendum, according to sophisticated modelling that takes into account demographics as well as voting intention for Scots.
However, findings published in the final days of the campaign suggest the first minister’s decision to put independence front and centre of his campaign may have backfired.
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Swinney has repeatedly claimed that he wants to hold a new vote on leaving the UK as soon as 2028, but the prospect of an outright SNP majority has receded significantly due to a pro-UK fightback in swing seats.
In April, YouGov said that in 89 per cent of thousands of simulations it ran using its multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP) polling method, the SNP would win an outright majority.
However, the likelihood has now fallen back to just 11 per cent, with pro-UK parties set to claim four constituencies previously forecast to be won by Swinney’s party and the Greens a further seat previously predicted to be won by the SNP.
Although another pro-independence majority at Holyrood is seen as a near-certainty, with the Scottish Greens poised to make a historic breakthrough, YouGov’s central projection now puts the SNP on 62 seats, down from 67 less than a month ago.
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Reform UK would emerge as the second-largest party, with 19 seats, in a tight race to become the main opposition.
Labour would win 17 seats, just one more than the Scottish Greens, which are projected to win their first ever constituencies, claiming the scalp of the senior cabinet minister Angus Robertson in the process.
The LibDems would emerge with eight seats, all but one of which would be in first-past-the-post races, with the Tories going from the largest opposition party to the smallest, returning just seven MSPs.While a Norstat poll for The Sunday Times at the weekend pointed to a late Tory resurgence, this is not replicated in the YouGov findings, which forecast that Russell Findlay, the party leader, would face the humiliation of losing his seat.
Patrick English, head of elections and political and social data at YouGov, said it appeared the SNP had been “pegged back” over recent weeks due to a slight decline in its own support, but more importantly, a “drive upwards” towards unionist parties in key seats. He said by far the most likely explanation was pro-Union tactical voting.
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Seats that unionists are now projected to retain include Dumbarton, where Dame Jackie Baillie is now set to hold on to the constituency she has held since 1999, and Eastwood, where Jackson Carlaw is now forecast to retain his seat by a razor-thin margin.
The new seat of Edinburgh Northern, as well as Strathkelvin & Bearsden, are now predicted to be won by the Liberal Democrats, with the Greens to beat the SNP to the Glasgow Kelvin & Maryhill constituency.
English said: “The SNP have clearly been pegged back between our two models owing in part to a slight decline in their own vote share, but more importantly, a drive upwards from the Conservatives, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats in some constituency seats where they are the best placed Unionist challenger. Each are now, we believe, winning at least one constituency contest each.
“The SNP’s projected majority in our April model was built on the back of winning 66 out of Scotland’s 72 available constituencies. Today, that figure has dropped to 61.
“While this will be disappointing news for John Swinney and his party, it has not seriously damaged his prospects of returning to Bute House as first minister. The SNP, plus Green seat totals, are more than enough to govern Scotland in 99 per cent of model simulations.
“As well, there remains a notable chance however, according to our model, that the SNP flip those constituencies back into their column, and win an outright majority.”
On Wednesday, party leaders will embark on the final day of campaigning. Swinney is expected to emphasise the SNP’s plans to tackle the cost of living, including a controversial supermarket price cap on staple products, in his final message to voters.
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, has maintained throughout the campaign that his party can defy the odds — and opinion polls — and oust the Nationalists from power.
However, according to the YouGov projections, the best possible outcome for Labour would be 21 seats, which would still be its worst result in the history of devolution. On a bad night, Labour could return as few as 11 MSPs.
According to a range of plausible outcomes, the SNP could return as few as 56 MSPs and at most 66. The Greens appear poised to return a record number of MSPs, with even the worst-case scenario putting them on 12, four more than their previous record.
There remains an outside chance that Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay’s party could even become the second largest at Holyrood, with the most optimistic scenario for the party giving them 20 seats.
If the YouGov projections are realised, Holyrood would see its first transgender MSP, with Iris Duane projected to win her Glasgow constituency for the Greens.
Reform UK would fail to win a single constituency under YouGov’s models, but pick up 19 on the regional list, according to its central estimate. The pollster’s seat ranges project that Malcolm Offord’s party will win at least 15 and potentially as many as 23 MSPs.
Findlay’s fate is likely to depend on Carlaw’s fight to hold on to his Eastwood seat. By a quirk of Holyrood’s voting system, Carlaw, a contender to be the next presiding officer, winning would mean no Tories would be elected on the regional list in the west of Scotland, where the party leader is the top candidate.
On a bad night, the seat tally for the Scottish Tories could be as low as five, while the best-case scenario is just 12 MSPs, down from the 31 the party won in 2021.
The Scottish LibDems are likely to improve on the tally of just four seats five years ago, with the party projected to win at least seven and as many as 12 seats.
The SNP would win just one seat through the regional list, according to the projections, in the Highlands and Islands, owing to the party’s strong performance nationally in constituencies.
YouGov polled 6,543 people between April 25 and May 5.