As the 2026 Scottish Parliament election approaches, keep up to date with all the latest polling and analysis on Ballot Box Scotland’s Holyrood Hub page!
Let’s start this piece with a little niggle of mine: the Scottish Conservatives have not, in fact, been the Official Opposition at Holyrood for the past decade. No such position exists. The Westminster model idea of an “Official Opposition” is ill-suited to a proportionally elected parliament. Whilst various allocations, not least of time, First Minister’s Questions, and committee spots, are determined by party size, there is no special reward for coming second.
Nonetheless, the Scottish Conservatives will no longer be confused for the Official Opposition after May. Jolted back to life during the leadership of – to use the popular but rather exoticising phrase – kickboxing lesbian Ruth Davidson, the leaders that followed have squandered their inheritance. Things look so dire for the party at this point that even their historic third place is nearly certain to elude them, and in some polls they are even placing sixth.
To go from having been the UK Government a couple of years ago to potentially placing behind the Greens and Lib Dems is a pretty miserable state of affairs. It certainly hasn’t helped them that Reform UK are absolutely devouring their voter base, but don’t make the mistake of putting all the blame on Reform: Conservative polling was already dire even before Reform started surging.
Heading into his first and potentially only election as leader, Russell Findlay looks set to preside over the worst thrashing for the Scottish Conservatives since 1997.
Holyrood History
Note: For consistency, all current polling average references and projections in the Party Profiles series are based on the last data point by the 1st of April 2026, as it was at time of publication *of the start of the series*. That point did change after the series started, and after I had already pre-loaded the data for every party, but due to the work involved in making very minor tweaks to account for changes, it’s easier to leave as-was.
Conservative Vote Share at Scottish Parliament Elections
An important thing to understand about the Scottish Conservatives, especially for anyone who came of age at or after the 1997 election but before 2016, is that they didn’t ever go anywhere. First Past the Post is a grotesquely unfair and unrepresentative voting system, albeit one the Conservatives themselves support, and gave an artificial sense of Scotland a nearly “Tory-Free Zone” at Westminster following their 1997 wipeout. In reality, they remained powerful contenders across much of rural Scotland outside the Highlands, and their vote shares demonstrate that. Starting at just over 15% didn’t put them in contention for government, sure, but it’s a lot of voters.
Although their constituency share went up in 2003 and 2007, their list vote went on a downward trajectory that contributed to the nearly universal trend of major parties doing worse on the proportional vote, where voters have options they don’t in the constituencies. 2011 was then the first time they lost support on both votes, though they were the least badly affected Pro-Union party.Â
That all changed in 2016, when they shot up above 20% for the first time, allowing them to become the primary opposition to the SNP. Buoyed by a surge in support for a vocally and uncompromisingly anti-IndyRef2 platform, plus a socially liberal leadership, they experienced an absolutely stunning revival, nearly doubling their support, and relegating a shell-shocked Labour party to third place. At this point the list vote flipped to be ahead of the constituency vote, even if not by a huge margin, likely reflecting the complex patterns of tactical voting now emerging amongst Pro-Union voters in key constituencies.
Ruth Davidson began presenting herself as Scotland’s Next First Minister, an always laughable claim if you considered the improbability of Labour voting for her to take up the role. This was nonetheless taken somewhat seriously, and you could hardly move for glowing reviews of her performance. Despite the end of Davidson-Mania in late 2019, the party held almost perfectly steady into 2021.
Since then at both Scottish and UK level they have made the conscious decision to return to their previous status as the “Nasty Party”: not my words, but those of former Conservative MSP Jamie Greene who quit the party in disgust last year to join the Lib Dems instead. Throwing away those voters attracted to a detoxified party, whilst encouraging those who revel in the culture wars to turn to those better known for it, has proven one of the worst political missteps of recent years. Polling now suggests the Conservatives could be headed for their worst vote share yet.
Conservative Seats Won at Scottish Parliament Elections
At Holyrood’s outset, the Conservatives found themselves in much the same place as they were at Westminster: completely blocked from constituency representation. Ironically enough however this most institutionally and constitutionally, well, conservative of parties nonetheless earned the status of third largest party through the proportional list element. This state of affairs was short lived though, as they won Ayr in the first by-election of Holyrood’s history.
Whilst they made no progress in overall representation at the next election and went backwards in both 2007 and 2011, they picked up several constituencies. Though 2011 was a bad election for all of the Pro-Union parties, at a net loss of just two seats versus 2007, the Conservatives could claim to be the least worst off. For much of the following term it seemed further decline was locked in, with poor polling putting even Ruth Davidson at risk; I struggle to believe her hop from Glasgow to Edinburgh was entirely unrelated to that.
As we now know, they needn’t have been worried, as their surge in support led to a doubling of their MSP group. This generated the biggest Conservative contingent north of the border for decades: not since 1959 UK General Election had they, or more precisely the Unionist Party, had as many parliamentarians in place. They held absolutely rock steady in 2021, when they were the only party with no change in their seat tally whatsoever.
Obviously, they won’t be so lucky this time. With their vote cratering, their seats can’t help but follow suit, and the current projection is for a woeful 10 MSPs. Sure, that’s artificially deflated by the SNP’s over-representation, but even if it wasn’t they’d be on track for their worst ever total. Some individual poll projections have put them in single-digits, and it’s believable that they could place behind the Greens on the day. They may also lose their status as a truly national party; more on that later on.
Conservative List Vote Distribution by Region in 2021 (Notional)
Following their great revival, the Conservatives have ended up with a relatively well spread vote distribution, with the glaring exception of Glasgow, which remains the toughest nut for them to crack. The redrawn Central and Lothians West region is the only other region they had below 20% in 2021, though thanks to West Lothian’s presence it’s a mite stronger than the previous Central Scotland region had been.
A rare Conservative deployment for the phrase “similar to the Scottish Greens”, West Lothian was stronger for the party than the region it entered, but weaker than the one it left, thus a counterbalancing upward tick in Edinburgh and Lothians East. Expect that figure to plummet this election though, as Edinburgh is the easiest place in Scotland to be a Pro-Union voter who wants to change party allegiance. Their vote in the West region, very mixed between affluent suburbs or commuter towns and working class communities, may likewise scatter in several directions.
The four remaining regions then are the proper heartlands of the post-IndyRef Conservatives. Highlands and Islands is really interesting in that it’s only really got Moray as a long-standing and resilient area of Conservative strength, with the Lib Dems having displaced them across the Highlands for a long time. In Mid Scotland and Fife, Perthshire and rural Stirling were also very good areas for them, moderated by deadzones in southern Fife.
The two final regions broke past 30%, with both North East and South covering the areas they retain MPs at Westminster to this day. In both they are now at serious risk from a Reform surge, plus the fact the redrawn version of South has brought in two Central Belt constituencies in which their support simply will not hold up well at all. Nonetheless I expect South to contain the only constituency the party is favoured to retain, though they aren’t without hope elsewhere.
Key Areas
For brevity, I’ve picked out five of the most important places for the Conservatives in this election. Not being included in this list doesn’t meant a constituency or region isn’t important, or that the Conservatives aren’t in with a chance of winning it. You can find more detail about other interesting seats in the Ballot Box Battlegrounds series, and information about every constituency in region via the Regional Preview series.
Eastwood (Constituency)
2021 Constituency Vote
2026 Constituency Vote (Projected)
Eastwood is a real corker of a seat in the sense that it could doom a party leader (past or present) either way. It’s not impossible, especially with the SNP’s pressure on proportionality in the region, that the Conservatives only end up due one MSP in the West region. If they lose this constituency and only get one list seat, sitting MSP and former leader Jackson Carlaw is gone, as he’s been ranked second. If however they hold onto this constituency and end up with no list seats, it’s current leader Russell Findlay who gets the electoral sack.
It’s very hard to really guess at how this seat will go though. On the one hand, the Conservative vote here is a socially liberal one: note that Carlaw was one of three Conservative MSPs to vote in favour of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which really fits that vibe. That means I don’t expect the mightiest of Reform performances. In addition, this is a relatively weak seat for the SNP. So, perhaps that all contributes to making this easier for the Conservatives to hold onto?
On the other hand, I’m very curious as to what is going to happen with the Labour vote. In theory it goes down, as they’re down nationwide, but it’s also the case they rose from the dead in the Westminster equivalent in 2024. Local shifts by definition are always different to the overall national picture, and it could be the churn in Labour vote sees them making progress here even whilst going backwards across the border in Glasgow. In that case, maybe that does lead to a splintered enough vote the SNP snatch the seat with a bigger majority than even my model anticipates?Â
Galloway and West Dumfries (Constituency)
2021 Constituency Vote
2026 Constituency Vote (Projected)
The most vulnerable of their three southern constituencies, Galloway and West Dumfries is one I have on the cards as a potential Reform UK win on a great day for the latter. With polling suggesting a truly great day isn’t on the cards for Reform, the question is whether they instead split the vote in such a way that the SNP are able to squeak into this seat.
The equivalent Westminster seat was a tight three way marginal between the Conservatives, SNP and Labour in 2024, and the SNP are struggling the least of any of those parties right now. Galloway, unlike Dumfriesshire, also actually has a pre-IndyRef history of SNP representation via the 1997 UK and 1999 Scottish elections.
Dumfriesshire (Constituency)
2021 Constituency Vote
2026 Constituency Vote (Projected)
The middle of the three blue border constituencies in terms of both geography and winnability, Dumfriesshire is one of just a couple of parts of Scotland that has never gone SNP at constituency level in either parliament. Right now, my model has it as perfect tie between the SNP and Conservatives. On balance, I do wonder if there’s just enough resilience in the local Conservative vote, given their long history here, to hold this on the day. If so, that isn’t just good news for the Conservatives, but for all of the opposition parties, as it helps cap the SNP’s potential over-representation in the South region.
Aberdeenshire West (Constituency)
Notional 2021 Constituency Vote
2026 Constituency Vote (Projected)
One of the SNP’s shock constituency losses in 2016, literally everyone else would probably quite like the Conservatives to hold this seat, because the North East is where the proportional pressure is greatest. A Conservative win here has a good chance of bringing in another Conservative or at least a Reform MSP on the list, but could even unlock a Green or Lib Dem seat depending on exactly where their vote falls. In 2024, the Conservative vote held up a lot better in the equivalent areas than it did nationwide, which also helps their chances here.
This is one where other models have leaned very heavily towards a Reform UK gain. As I noted in their preview, I’m not convinced the mapping of Conservative to Reform support is as close as necessary for that to be the case, but that’s also only a hypothesis and I could be wrong. Even with that being my view my model has this as a three way marginal, so perhaps none of the top three here should be written off.
Glasgow (Region)
Notional 2021 Regional Vote
2026 Regional Vote (Projected)
You might be surprised to see Glasgow on a list of the top 5 most important areas for the Conservatives, but I refer you back to my earlier point about ceasing to be a truly national party. At every election since Holyrood was established, the Conservatives have won at least 1 MSP in ever region. For the first few elections that was quite simply 1 MSP in a couple of regions, most notably in Glasgow. They were able to earn a double in 2016, and narrowly fended off the Greens (likely aided by the spoiler effect from fake, far-right front group “Independent Green Voice”) to hold it in 2021.
Right now though they are at very serious risk of losing both of their MSPs in Glasgow, robbing them of nationwide representation. Their lowest ever support was 6.1% in 2011, when they got 12.4% of the nationwide vote. They’re currently looking at something more like 11%, and besides, with the SNP’s expected proportionality-busting constituency haul, even repeating their 2011 result wouldn’t be enough for a seat.
My model goes further than that and sinks them to a ghastly 3%. If that seems too low, they only got 4.3% across the city versus 12.7% nationally in 2024, so they’ve already experienced what would equate to a citywide deposit loss at Holyrood. However, their support on the list vote may be distributed somewhat differently to their vote in a First Past the Post situation. I therefore wouldn’t give them no hope at all of a Glasgow MSP, but they’re really going to struggle.
What to Watch for in 2026
Note: Obviously, your personal perception of a good or bad result will depend on how much you like a given party. For the purposes of this piece, good and bad relate to how an impartial observer might view the result, taking into account other elections and the general situation facing that party. They are not a commentary on whether such results would be good or bad for the country.
Good Result
There simply isn’t a good result available to the Conservatives in this election, it’s all varying degrees of bad. The least bad outcome available to them is to remain in the teens. Not the tens: the teens. If you’re superstitious, 13 may seem an unlucky number, but it’s better than any recent seat projection which have spanned from 8-12 MSPs.Â
Bad Result
It’s going to be a bad result for the Scottish Conservatives. It’s practically impossible to imagine their group isn’t at least halved, it’s almost certain to be their smallest MSP contingent ever, and it’s not impossible it ends up in single digits. If it does, that’s an absolutely existential crisis for the party, worse even than what they endured after their famous John Major wipeout.
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