Scottish election latest polls April 2021: Salmond could make surprise gains as SNP stalls

Scottish election 2021: Dumbarton voters share mixed views

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A new poll, conducted by Panelbase, interviewed a representative sample of 1075 adults in Scotland, including 16 and 17-year-olds, from 21st-26th April for the SCOT goes POP! pro-independence website. While previous polls have agreed Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party (SNP) isn’t likely to take back its majority, most have shown Alex Salmond’s new Alba party would fall flat.

Voters will elect 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), with the party winning the most seats forming the government.

The Panelbase poll predicted the next Scottish Parliament would be made up of 61 SNP MSPs (the same as 2016 and seven short of a majority), 24 Conservatives (down seven), 20 Labour 20 (down four), 11 Greens 11 (up five), eight for Alba and five for the Liberal Democrats.

The poll estimates the SNP would gain 45 percent of the constituency vote, Labour 22 percent, the Conservatives 20 percent, the Lib Dems eight percent and the Greens four percent.

In the regional list ballot, the SNP were predicted to receive 36 percent, the Conservatives 21 percent, Labour 18 percent, Greens 10 percent, Alba six percent, the Liberal Democrats six percent and George galloway’s All for Unity party two percent.

If this manifests, the SNP will command the same amount of seats won at the 2016 election when they lost their majority.

These results would see Ms Sturgeon’s mentor-turned-rival Mr Salmond command a dramatic return to Holyrood.

The poll also shows the Scottish Greens picking up, which would create the pro-independence “super-majority” Mr Salmond spoke of when he launched his party.

SCOT goes POP! author James Kelly wrote: “The big story is Alba’s showing on the list.

“If that’s how it turns out, Alba will arguably have succeeded in bringing about the ‘supermajority’ they promised, albeit with the Greens playing a crucial role as well.”

This is by far the most encouraging poll for the Alba party.

Recent polls by Savanta ComRes, YouGov and Survation all put the Alba Party down to receive between just one and three percent of the vote.

All four polls have also detected a drop in SNP support on the list vote – on average by as much as four points.

As a result, there is now an 11-point difference between the party’s support on the constituency vote (which has also slipped by a point) and that on the regional list.

The other polls also show the Greens proving most successful at picking up SNP support on the list. Around one in seven SNP constituency voters are backing the party with their regional vote.

At nine percent, the party’s average standing in the polls suggests that it could be heading for its best election performance yet.

In the Scottish election people have two votes, one for a constituency MSP and another for the regional ballot, often referred to as the “list vote”.

The list vote is usually for a party rather than an individual.

The parties are then allocated a number of MSPs depending on how many votes they receive.

Then the number of constituencies already won in that region is taken into account to make the overall result more proportional.

There are eight electoral regions, each with seven regional MSPs.

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