PROFESSOR John Curtice has given his verdict on a new exclusive Holyrood poll for The National.
The survey from Find Out Now predicted that the SNP were on course to remain by far the largest party next year – with 35% of the constituency share and 25% on the regional vote.
Scottish Labour meanwhile saw a sharp drop in support, particularly in the constituency vote, according to the poll, sitting at just 15% in both.
With increased backing for both the Scottish Greens and Alba in the list vote and a drop in support for Scottish Labour, Curtice said the poll would suggest a pro-independence majority of 29 MSPs should it be repeated in the 2026 election (below).
The leading pollster told The National that the crucial takeaway from the poll was that the possible prospect of a pro-independence majority is helped along by the SNP’s potentially large lead over everybody else on the constituency vote.
“That just gives them, potentially, a whole barrel-load of seats,” Curtice, who is a professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said.
He also highlighted the drop in support for Scottish Labour – particularly in the constituency vote – and added that the last time it was this low (15%) was in February 2021, a few months before that year’s Holyrood election.
“I'd want to see this confirmed by the evidence. I mean, with the GB polls, nothing dramatic has changed since January. Labour support is still running around 25%,” he said.
"So, why is it suddenly falling on one of two ballots in this poll?"
While support for Scottish Labour dropped by 1% in the list vote, it dropped a sharp 5% in the constituency vote since the last Find Out Now poll in January.
But Curtice said that what the poll certainly emphasises is the “difficulty” Anas Sarwar’s party finds itself in.
“Labour's problem north of the Border is not too dissimilar to that south of the Border in that basically they're just losing votes all over the place,” he said.
“According to The National’s poll, only around half of the people who voted Labour last July are saying they’d vote for the party again.”
This includes, according to the survey, haemorrhaging 13% of its voters in July to Reform UK, 12% to the SNP, 10% to the Lib Dems and 6% to the Scottish Tories.
“It's just going everywhere and that's also true south of the Border. It’s just that the SNP are also profiting [in Scotland],” Curtice said.
Meanwhile, the SNP are only losing 2% of its support from last year to Nigel Farage’s party, according to the survey.
He went on: “Reform are just opening up, together with the generic decline in Labour's support, a pathway for the SNP to be able to retain power relatively comfortably.”
Curtice also suggested that the poll would suggest that the SNP are on course to win the upcoming Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election.
The by-election to succeed the late MSP Christina McKelvie will take place on June 5.
“If you take other recent polls, you would say that the Hamilton by-election would be neck-and-neck between Tory and Labour,” Curtice said.
“If this poll is right, then the SNP should win Hamilton albeit on a much reduced share of the vote.”
