‘Odds against’ John Swinney’s SNP winning Holyrood majority, says polling expert

The SNP is set to “gobble up” constituency seats at Holyrood but the “odds are against” John Swinney’s party winning an overall majority, polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice has said.

The University of Strathclyde academic said the latest polling indicates the SNP is “not quite far enough” ahead with voters to win more than half the seats at Holyrood.

He was speaking on the eve of the Scottish Parliament election, with the vote coming at the end of a campaign in which SNP leader Mr Swinney has been focused on repeating the party’s success from 2011 and securing an overall majority.

The Scottish First Minister believes such a result could lead Westminster to change its stance and permit a second independence referendum.

While Mr Swinney has already pencilled in 2028 for such a vote, Sir John said key battles in a “handful of seats” could deny the SNP an overall majority.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s breakfast programme on Wednesday, the polling guru said studies show the Tories may “just hang on to a handful of constituency seats and the Liberal Democrats will just make a handful of gains”.

This, combined with the prospect of parties such as the Greens and Reform UK winning in some areas, could mean “there are just a relatively small number of contests where the other parties are going to hang on, or in one or two instances make a gain, and that is going to stand between the SNP and victory”, he said.

But he added: “The truth is, trying to forecast exactly what is going to happen in individual seats is very, very difficult.

“If the cookie were to crumble just slightly in the SNP’s favour, the Greens just miss out on some of their hopes, then maybe the SNP might still make it.

“But if the polls are right the odds are against it and the SNP will need a lot of luck.”
He said support for the SNP is “well down” from the last Holyrood election in 2021 – when the party, then under Nicola Sturgeon, polled almost 48% of the constituency votes.

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But Sir John also said: “Support for the Conservatives is also well down on what it was in 2021 and perhaps support for Labour is also edging down as well, that would mean the SNP would still gobble up most of the constituencies that they won back in 2021.”
He also said polling suggests “Reform have a narrow lead over Labour” in the race for second place.

Sir John said: “I don’t think any of us can be sure what is going to happen but we might have a new party being the second largest party in the new Parliament.”
His comments came as a new multilevel regression with post-stratification (MRP) poll by YouGov suggested the SNP will win 62 Holyrood seats on Thursday – three short of the 65 needed for an overall majority.

The Times reported YouGov also predicted Reform UK would emerge as the second largest party on 19 seats, two more than Labour on 17.

The Scottish Greens could win 16 seats at Holyrood – which would be the party’s best ever result – including taking the Edinburgh Central constituency being contested by the Scottish Constitution, External Affairs and Culture Secretary, Angus Robertson.

The research went on to predict the Scottish Liberal Democrats could have eight MSPs – double the four they won in 2021 – while the Tories could go from 31 seats to seven, making them the smallest party.

MRPs use voter intentions, demographics, previous voting behaviour and constituency information to project the number of seats parties could win.

In April, YouGov said such a poll had suggested 89% of simulations it ran resulted in the SNP winning an outright majority – however this was now said to have fallen to 11%.

“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, it has not seriously damaged his prospects of returning as first minister.”