THE latest Holyrood election voting intention polling shows the SNP are on track to secure a majority while the Tories fall into third place behind Labour.
The survey of more than 2000 people, carried out by Survation for DC Thomson, also found the Greens would secure 11 seats – an increase of five on the previous election. With the SNP’s 67 seats, this would result in 78 pro-indy MSPs in the Parliament.
According to the poll, Labour would win 24 seats and the Scottish Tories would secure 22 – with Anas Sarwar’s party’s regional list vote helping them into second place.
The LibDems would see a repeat of 2016 with five MSPs.
Meanwhile, with don’t knows excluded, the poll repeated recent trends by finding an even split for and against independence. It was carried out after the First Minister and Alex Salmond gave evidence to the Holyrood inquiry, but before the publication of the committee’s, or Hamilton’s, report.
Polling expert Professor John Curtice commented: “All the polls are roughly around 50/50 at the moment and there is increasing evidence the whole row has not made much difference.
“Support for the country is split down the middle of the country and has been split down the middle since February.
“It’s clearly lower than it was last year, but it hasn’t really moved during the course of recent weeks.”
This week it emerged that a poll conducted by Hanbury Strategy and reported in the Sunday Times actually found majority support for independence, despite claiming the contrary. The 50/50 split was later corrected to 53% backing Yes.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon vows to hold indyref2 ‘if Scotland votes for it’
Discussing the poll, Damian Lyons Lowe, the chief executive of Survation, said: “Despite recent controversies, these initial results, as the campaign kicks off, indicate the SNP would take a majority of seats were the Scottish parliament election to be held today, receiving 50% of the constituency vote and a 39% share of the regional list second vote.
“Two thirds of Scots believe the Scottish Government has handled the coronavirus pandemic ‘well’ vs less than a third who said ‘badly’.”
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