THE Scottish Greens could double their current number of MSPs at next week’s Holyrood election, helping to secure a strong pro-independence majority in the parliament, a new poll shows.
A Savanta ComRes survey for The Scotsman puts the party’s regional list support up three points and projects they will achieve 11 MSPs at the May 6 vote.
Meanwhile, the poll shows support for the SNP on the constituency and regional votes down – although within the margin of error at just one and two points respectively.
The poll, carried out among 1001 adults from April 23-27, predicts the SNP would return 61 MSPs, two seats less than they currently have, with support in the constituency on 45%. Some 36% of people plan to back the party on the regional list ballot.
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Meanwhile the Tories are down on last week’s poll from the company, by two points and one point on the constituency and regional vote respectively. This would give Douglas Ross’s party 28 MSPs, a decrease of three from their previous result under Ruth Davidson.
Scottish Labour are up on the previous Savanta ComRes study, with 23% of voters backing them in the constituency and 19% giving them support on the list. This would keep their MSP total at 24, the same result achieved in 2016.
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Chris Hopkins, associate director at the polling company, said the reasons for the drop in independence support and the SNP were “unclear”.
"The SNP appeared to ride negative headlines in the early part of the year, so it’s unlikely that the party itself has just gotten more unpopular all of the sudden,” he said.
"Instead, it seems that the two major Unionist parties, the Conservatives and Labour, have somewhat – but by no means completely – got their act together, and are at least doing a better job now at retaining their core vote, rather than leaking it to Yes and the SNP.
"This, coupled with a potentially more fragmented pro-independence List vote, more so from the Greens than from the ever-unpopular Alex Salmond’s Alba Party, means the SNP may fall short of their majority and not give Nicola Sturgeon the unequivocal mandate for a second independence vote.”
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