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!
Poll Details and Context
No rest for the wicked on the eve of poll, as that’s the ideal time for pollsters to drop their own final polls. Big beasts of UK polling, YouGov, are back again with their detailed MRP figures (link to original writeup).Â
This is again via the “Multilevel Regression and Post-Stratification” approach, rather than just bog-standard opinion polling. This means it also comes with YouGov’s own estimate for results in each constituency and region. I remain sceptical that for all their cleverness MRPs are, actually, any more informative or accurate than more simple projection methods such as those I use on BBS, though the last couple of MRPs of the campaign have been less eyebrow raising. In any case, we can nonetheless use their vote shares to drive a normal projection and compare.
The previous YouGov MRP covered the 23rd of March – 8th of April 2026. Changes are shown as (vs that poll / vs last election).
Note: You may also notice some changes in the BBS website layout with a new theme. Hopefully all recent and relevant pieces have migrated over to the new theme alright, but if you spot anything odd, please drop me either an email or a message on Bluesky to let me know, including whether you encountered the issue on the desktop or mobile version of the website.
Regional Vote
Change vs Last Poll
Change vs 2021
Margin of error warning!
Everything here is within that margin so don’t read too much into it! For the SNP, Labour and Reform, these figures are almost precisely in the middle of their recent polling spread, which is bad news for Labour and good for Reform, adding to the sense Reform are on track to be the largest opposition party. Bad news too for the Lib Dems in that this becomes their joint-lowest recent figure.
On the other hand, the Greens will be delighted with another poll out today that’s clearly above their recent average. YouGov had a history of highballing the Greens before settling into a more middling tendency, but even without that all signs continue to point to a record Green result. The Conservatives are also better off than what was a completely and utterly catastrophic poll last time, instead now facing a standard catastrophe.
Constituency Vote
Change vs Last Poll
Change vs 2021
Margin of error warning!
Again, very little statistically relevant movement here, but what we do have includes a downtick for the SNP. We’ve been seeing that a lot lately, so I’d be inclined to say this does feel a bit like a trend. It’s nonetheless the best figure in the average for them at time of writing (I believe there is one last poll to come), and leaves them almost as far ahead of their closest opponents as in 2021.
As if that wasn’t bad news enough for Labour, they are in a straight tie with Reform on this vote, and a few points short of their 2021 numbers. The polling miss that they are spinning must surely exist would have to be truly massive to make any difference to their prospects by this point. As with the list vote, note a little uptick for the Conservatives after their miserable showing last month.
Seat Projection
Projecting that into seats might give us something like this:
Please see this page for how projections work and important caveats.
Although this is a weaker position for the SNP compared to the previous YouGov, it still ends up the best projection in the current crop. Interestingly, whereas my model was less favourable to the SNP than the previous poll than YouGov’s own (which suggested a narrow majority), the tables have turned here. In that sense, there’s a real oddity between YouGov finding the strongest SNP constituency figure of any recent poll, but also going relatively lowball on constituency wins in their own projection. It’s by no means wrong to think that tactical voting will swing things, but for example More In Common had much worse MRP for the SNP in vote terms but still had more constituencies swing their way. The joys of modelling!
Regardless, the Pro-Independence side still has an easy majority with a further growth in Green MSP numbers. Again an interesting difference between BBS and YouGov is we both have two Green constituencies, one in each of Edinburgh and Glasgow, but for the latter my model says Southside and YouGov think Maryhill and Kelvin. Labour are only one seat ahead of the Greens, and Reform are relatively clearly in second place. That’s all very much of a piece with general trends. Though the Conservatives do better than the last poll they still end up in single digit seats, as do the Lib Dems.
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
- Grand Coalition: SNP and Labour
- Union Bloc: Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and Reform UK
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