As the 2026 Scottish Parliament approaches, keep up to date with all the latest polling and analysis on Ballot Box Scotland’s Holyrood Hub page!
Poll Details and Context
Polling in Scotland can be a bit like buses at the best of times, never mind when an election is rapidly approaching. So it was we got two polls with (almost) identical fieldwork dates last week. The second of the pair was from Survation (link to tables) for the Diffley Partnership. The differences between these two polls are pretty substantial in places, which is a useful reminder for us all not to take a single poll as the perfect reflection of attitudes.
Note the fieldwork dates: this took place before the Gorton and Denton by-election which saw the (English and Welsh) Greens win their first ever Westminster by-election. We’ve since seen some immediate impacts of that on GB-wide polling, including a YouGov with the Greens in second. Whilst we shouldn’t over-estimate the potential effects of a single by-election, in England, for a different party, on Scottish politics, it could still have an impact up here, in terms of suggesting Labour are in trouble, that voting Green can be worthwhile, and indeed it can be a way to stick it to Reform.
Note also that this only included Holyrood figures.
The previous Survation covered the 8h – 12th of January 2026. Changes are shown as (vs that poll / vs last election).
Regional Vote
Change vs Last Poll
Change vs 2021
Most of what we have versus the last poll here is margin of error… most. The big standout here is a whopping 5% increase in SNP support, bringing them to their best share of the list vote since January 2024. I am rather dubious about this particular bit. Whilst it’s true that the dip in Alba support (a party that won’t even exist come the election) would reasonably be expected to flow to the SNP, I’m really not convinced that anything has happened that would justify such an increase.
Perhaps unsurprisingly the highest SNP share of late is balanced by a continued low Green share. I will need to check back in on this after the election but if, as I suspect, weighting and sample building is based on past Westminster and/or Constituency vote, pollsters as a whole may be struggling to get the Greens right. The idea Scotland is effectively entirely missing the GB-wide Green surge seems nonsensical (sorry, Survation), but the idea it’s almost entirely keeping pace with it also seems wrong (sorry, Ipsos).
Constituency Vote
Change vs Last Poll
Change vs 2021
Margin of error alert!
Things are less wild on the constituency vote, though note again the SNP have the biggest change here. That makes this the best poll overall for the SNP in a long time, albeit this high a constituency figure has relatively recent precedent, in the form of September’s Survation. That’s enough for me to tilt Survation into clearly being a “High SNP” pollster.
It also means they are absolutely miles ahead of Labour and Reform and would be facing no serious challenge in most constituencies across the country, with all the proportional impact that entails. That’s especially true with downticks for the Greens (who otherwise often take Edinburgh Central in my model) and Reform (who might take Banffshire and Buchan Coast on a good day).Â
Seat Projection
Projecting that into seats might give us something like this:
Please see this page for how projections work and important caveats.
Despite the size of the SNP’s vote share gains in this poll, it only translates to a handful of additional projected seats, landing one short of a majority. That’s still enough for an easy Pro-Independence majority with the Greens mind you, although the latter could return to their status as smallest Holyrood party, if indeed their share in this poll isn’t exaggeratedly small.
Possible Majorities
Note: these majorities relate simply to passing a vote in the Scottish Parliament. They do not imply the formation of a full coalition government.
- Traffic Light: Labour, Lib Dem and Green
- Independence Bloc: SNP, Green and Alba
- Grand Coalition: SNP and Labour
- Union Bloc: Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and Reform UK
Hypotheticals
As ever, the last little bit of analysis concerns those hypothetical and more proportional voting systems that BBS likes to play about with. The use of pure FPTP at Westminster is an affront to democracy, and though Holyrood fares far better, AMS is still deeply imperfect. The examples here simply transpose the poll findings onto more proportional voting systems – the reality is that different systems would of course result in different voter behaviour.
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