So the Alba-haters who got so terribly excited about a single ComRes poll putting the party on 1% will have to calm down again, at least for the time being. A new Survation poll shows no drop at all in the Alba vote, which increases the chances that the ComRes number was just a freakish finding caused by random sampling variation. Like YouGov, Survation have also contradicted ComRes in that they’re still showing the SNP on course for an overall majority – indeed the SNP vote has actually risen on the constituency ballot.
Scottish Parliament constituency voting intentions (Survation / Sunday Post):
SNP 50% (+1)
Conservatives 21% (-)
Labour 21% (+1)
Liberal Democrats 7% (-2)
Greens 2% (+1)
Scottish Parliament regional list voting intentions:
SNP 35% (-3)
Labour 22% (+3)
Conservatives 20% (+2)
Greens 10% (-1)
Liberal Democrats 7% (-1)
Alba 3% (-)
Seats projection (with changes from 2016 election): SNP 67 (+4), Labour 24 (-), Conservatives 22 (-9), Greens 11 (+5), Liberal Democrats 5 (-)
SNP: 67 seats
All others: 62 seats
SNP OVERALL MAJORITY OF 5 SEATS
Pro-independence parties: 78 seats
Anti-independence parties: 51 seats
PRO-INDEPENDENCE MAJORITY OF 27 SEATS
Bear in mind that seats projections at this stage have to assume that Alba’s vote is evenly spread, which is unlikely to be the case in the real world. So the projection that Alba are on zero seats should be taken with a pinch of salt. With a national vote of 3%, there’s a good chance that they’d be on 5%+ in one or two regions, and thus might take one or two seats.
The other point that should be treated with a little caution is Labour’s second place. Over recent months, Survation have repeatedly shown Labour doing better, relative to the Tories, than other firms have. So although the general consensus is that Anas Sarwar has had a better campaign than Douglas Ross (hasn’t everyone?), and although it may seem intuitively plausible that Labour are re-emerging as the leading opposition party, I wouldn’t find it at all surprising if other firms continue to show the Tories in second place.
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 49% (-1)
No 51% (+1)
I’d say the independence numbers are mildly encouraging. Given that ComRes and YouGov both showed 2% drops in the Yes vote to 48% and 47% respectively, I wouldn’t have expected Survation – who in recent times have been a relatively No-friendly pollster – to report a figure as high as 49%. Election campaigns often produce dips in support for independence, simply because unionist parties fire up their base by making the case against indy, while the SNP tend to shy away from making the case for indy and try to win on bread and butter issues instead. But there’s certainly no sign of the roof failling in.
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