New poll puts John Swinney’s SNP on course for Holyrood majority

The SNP is being tipped to win an overall majority at next month’s Holyrood elections, with polling research indicating John Swinney’s party could take 67 of the 129 seats there, while Labour and the Tories face “historic losses”.

YouGov’s first full MRP (multilevel regression and post-stratification)  poll of the Scottish election campaign shows the SNP on  track for a fifth term in  power at Edinburgh, potentially returning three more MSPs than the 64 the party achieved in 2021.

The pollster said that almost nine out of 10 of its simulations (89%) resulted in an SNP majority, something the party only achieved in 2011.

But YouGov added that while the SNP are predicted to return more than half the MSPs at Holyrood, this was “in spite of a significant decline in support since 2021”.

The pollster found  the SNP taking a 41% constituency vote share, down seven points from the last Holyrood election, and a 32% regional share, down eight points.

It polled nearly 4,000 adults across Scotland, research carried out between March 23 and April 8, and then used this to predict seat-by-seat outcomes for Holyrood’s 73 constituencies, while also forecasting  the number of MSPs each party could return on the regional list ballot after May 7.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, led in Scotland by Malcolm Offord,  could come in second place with 20 MSPs, the research suggested.

It forecast 15 MSPs for Scottish Labour, seven fewer than the party won in the 2021 Holyrood contest, in what would be the party’s worst performance in a Scottish Parliament election.

The Scottish Tories meanwhile, who won 31 seats at the last election, could be reduced to just seven, YouGov indicated.

This would make them the smallest party at Holyrood, with the Scottish Liberal Democrats predicted to return nine MSPs, up from the four they won five years ago.

Meanwhile the Scottish Greens could return a record 11 MSPs if the research’s findings are replicated, an increase on the eight won in 2021.

YouGov also suggested there could be a “wafer-thin constituency win for the Greens in Edinburgh Central”, the seat where former Scottish Green co-leader Lorna Slater is standing against Scottish Culture Secretary Angus Robertson.

The pollsters however said that Edinburgh Central was one of five constituencies that are “effectively toss-ups in our results, where the winning party’s current estimated lead is less than five points”.

But taking the totals for the SNP and Greens together, there could be 78 independence-supporting MSPs at Holyrood, which would be the largest total to date.

YouGov said its research showed the SNP could win 66 of the 73 constituency contests at Holyrood.

The Lib Dems are forecast to win in five constituencies,  while the Conservatives are reduced to a single constituency  seat, Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, the projections showed.

The pollsters said it “could be a wipeout for Labour in the constituencies” as YouGov said it was currently predicting a “wafer-thin margin” for the SNP over Labour in Dumbarton,- the seat Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie has held since 1999.

Patrick English, YouGov’s head of elections, told the Times newspaper: “YouGov is projecting that, for the fifth time in a row, the SNP will win the upcoming Holyrood election. Not only that, but we expect them to do so while winning an outright majority.”

But he added that “much could change between now and May 7, with tactical voting potentially playing a significant role still to come”.

Mr English said: “In no fewer than 60 of the 66 projected SNP constituency wins, the projected total votes for Labour, the Conservatives, Reform, and the Liberal Democrats outnumber those for the SNP.

“The extent to which voters of each of those parties swing in behind the best-placed Unionist challenger party could be the difference between an outright majority for the SNP, or another situation entirely.”