HUMZA Yousaf has been elected the new leader of the SNP in a close-run leadership race.
The results were ultimately what some Holyrood-watchers had been expecting, with Yousaf holding on to a slim majority despite Kate Forbes taking it to the line, and Ash Regan quite far behind in third place.
Here’s exactly how the vote numbers broke down.
The first round of voting saw SNP members rank all three candidates from their first preference down.
In total, there were 72,169 SNP party members who were eligible to vote in the leadership election. A total of 50,494 of them did so, meaning the ballot had a turnout of 69.96%.
There were 48,645 votes submitted electronically and 1849 votes submitted by post. Three of the votes submitted by post were spoiled ballots.
After the first round of voting, the results were as follows:
- Humza Yousaf: 24,336 votes, 48.2% of the vote.
- Kate Forbes: 20,559 votes, 40.7% of the vote.
- Ash Regan: 5599 votes, 11.1% of the vote.
The first round saw no candidate manage to win more than 50% of the votes cast, meaning the person in last place (Regan) was eliminated. People who had voted for Regan then had their second preferences taken into account.
After the second round of voting the results were:
- Humza Yousaf: 26,032, 52.1% of the vote.
- Kate Forbes: 23,890, 47.9% of the vote.
The final results mean that Regan’s supporters backed Forbes by a majority approaching 2:1. However, the roughly one-third that Yousaf managed to convince represented enough support to get him over 50%.
In total:
- 1696 of Regan’s backers put Yousaf as their second preference.
- 3331 of Regan’s backers put Forbes as their second preference.
This is a total of 5027, meaning some 572 of Regan’s backers did not allocate a second preference.
Yousaf and Forbes supporters' second preferences
The SNP have also published a breakdown of the second preferences of the members who voted for Forbes and Yousaf. It shows that, by a narrow margin, the voters who backed Yousaf without specifying a second preference were the largest group.
The second-largest group of voters was the members who backed Forbes first and then Yousaf. A total of 9585 people who backed Forbes in the first round (46.2% of the total 20559) backed Yousaf second.
Pollster Mark McGeoghegan has a full summary.
And arranged by first/second preference combination. pic.twitter.com/m2LZsfij3g
— Mark McGeoghegan (@markmcgeoghegan) March 27, 2023
