New poll suggests SNP on course for majority as Labour overtake Tories

The SNP is on course for a five-seat majority while Alex Salmond’s Alba Party languishes with just 3% of the predicted regional list votes, a new poll suggests.

Scottish Labour are also set to overtake the Tories as Holyrood’s second-largest party, gaining two seats, according to the survey of 1,037 prospective Scottish voters carried out by Survation for The Sunday Post.

The survey suggests half of all voters plan to vote SNP in their constituency vote while 35% intend to do so on the regional list ballot paper, which the polling suggests would give them 67 seats.

Labour’s projected 25 seats are based on 21% in constituency votes and 22% of list votes, followed by the Scottish Conservatives on 21% and 20% respectively, leaving them with 22 seats – down eight.

The Liberal Democrats polled 7% for both votes, keeping them on five seats, while the Scottish Greens would be backed by one in 10 voters on the list ballot, giving them 11 seats, an increase of five from the last election in 2016.

The Alba Party’s 3% of list vote support would not be enough to gain any seats at Holyrood, the modelling suggests.

Its leader, Mr Salmond, is popular with only 10% of respondents, with a net favourability rating of minus 64, compared with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on minus 42, Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross on minus 26, Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie on minus 12 and Patrick Harvie on minus nine.

A new poll suggests the SNP are to win a five-seat majority, with Labour overtaking the Tories.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar are the only two to have positive net favourability, with 16 and seven respectively.

Writing in The Sunday Post, polling expert Sir John Curtice said: “At the beginning of the campaign Nicola Sturgeon was concerned that Salmond’s Alba Party would eat into her party’s list vote.

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