How well will the parties do in the 2026 Scottish election?

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The next Scottish parliamentary election is due in 2026. How will the parties do?

Norstat Poll

An opinion poll by Norstat conducted on 20-24 August puts the voting shares as follows:

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

SNP           28%
Labour        28%
Conservative  14%
Reform         9%
Green          8%
Lib Dem        7%
Alba           5%

This give a seat projection of SNP 41, Labour 40, Conservatives 18, Greens 10, Liberal Democrats 8, Reform UK 8, Alba 4.

The big three

At the last election in 2021 the three biggest parties were the SNP (who got 64 seats), the Conservatives (31 seats) and Labour (22 seats).

I think they may all do badly, due to anti-incumbent swings:

• The SNP are in power at Holyrood, controlling the Scottish government.

• Labour are in power at Westminster, controlling the UK government.

• The Conservatives were in power at Westminster from 2010 to 2024, and made such a mess of things that the voters are unlikely to have forgiven them in two short years.

If the big parties do poorly, reducing their votes and seats, then some of the smaller parties will increase theirs.

The smaller parties

The Greens were in coalition with the SNP, until that fell apart. There were also in charge of the failed deposit return scheme. Nevertheless they will probably keep their 8% vote share from 2021.

The Liberal Democrats got 5% of the list vote in 2021. They're probably do better, since the voters have finally forgiven them for going in coalition with the Tories from 2010 to 2015, and jacking up student tuition fees when they said they wouldn't.

Reform UK got a paltry 0.2% vote share in 2021, but they did well in the recent UK general election, getting 7% of the votes in Scotland. On that showing they would certainly win seats in Holyrood.

Alba, which was set up by former SNP leader and First Minister Alex Salmond, to compete with his old party, also did unimpressively in 2021, getting 1.7% of the vote, which wasn't enough to win any seats. But the SNP have gone through 2 leaders since that election, and look tired. The Norstat poll puts them on 5% of the vote, which would win them about 4 seats.

So I expect all four of these parties to win seats in 2026, with Reform and Alba entering the Scottish parliament. There would then be 7 parties in the parliament altogether, up from 5 getting elected in 2021.

Manifold market

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Think you know how the election will go? Then place your bets!