{"id":729292,"date":"2026-01-29T20:14:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/729292\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T20:14:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:14:21","slug":"5-things-we-learned-from-yougovs-first-holyrood-poll-of-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/729292\/","title":{"rendered":"5 things we learned from YouGov’s first Holyrood poll of 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The survey \u2013 which comes just three months away from the Scottish parliament election \u2013 makes for better reading for some parties than others<\/a>. It also delves into where things stand for Scottish independence<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\n Here are five things we have learned from this new poll.\n<\/p>\n

SNP remain firmly ahead in spite of loss of support<\/p>\n

\n The SNP<\/a> are now on 34% of the constituency vote, down 14 points since the 2021 election, and are on 29% of the list vote, down 11 points.\n<\/p>\n

\n This would be their lowest share of the regional vote since 2003, before they were in power.\n<\/p>\n

\n John Swinney\n<\/p>\n

\n But this drop doesn\u2019t particularly matter as other parties are struggling. Scottish Labour<\/a> were on 15% for both votes amid Keir Starmer<\/a>\u2019s unpopular government and the advent of Reform UK as a political force, who took second place on the poll.\n<\/p>\n

How independence supporters are leaning<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n The polling revealed that, among those who voted Yes in 2014, Reform UK are the second most popular party. 16% of 2014 Yes voters said they would back Nigel Farage<\/a>‘s party, while 61% said they would back the SNP.\n<\/p>\n

\n Among 2014 No voters, Labour were narrowly the most popular party, on 24%. Reform were also second in that category, on 24%.\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an awful poll for Anas Sarwar<\/p>\n

\n Scottish Labour have matching 15% vote shares for both parts of the election, relative to a 22% constituency share and an 18% regional share in 2021.\n<\/p>\n

\n If repeated in May, this would be their worst result in either a Westminster<\/a> or Holyrood election in 116 years, according to YouGov.\n<\/p>\n

\n Just 32% of people who voted for Labour in 2024 said they expect to do so again in 2026.\n<\/p>\n

\n That would certainly jumpstart questions as to whether Anas Sarwar<\/a> should remain as leader.\n<\/p>\n

The Scottish Greens may be on cusp of first-ever constituency win<\/p>\n

\n A less noticeable detail from this poll is that the Scottish Greens<\/a> have gone from a paltry 1% to 9% in the constituency vote.\n<\/p>\n

\n Co-leaders Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay (Image: NQ)\n<\/p>\n

\n The party have typically relied on the list vote, where voters often rank them second after the SNP, for its share of MSPs.\n<\/p>\n

\n But times appear to be changing.\n<\/p>\n

\n I am told that the party are hopeful they could pick up their first ever Holyrood constituency win in either Edinburgh<\/a> Central or Glasgow South in May.\n<\/p>\n

John Swinney most popular leader with Prime Minister languishing at the bottom<\/p>\n

\n John Swinney<\/a> remains the most popular party leader in Scotland, with a third of Scots (33%) having a favourable opinion of the SNP leader while half (50%) see the first minister unfavourably.\n<\/p>\n

\n At face value, that doesn\u2019t look great, but such is the unpopularity of elected officials.\n<\/p>\n

\n READ MORE:<\/strong> Meeting notes highlight \u2018political pressure\u2019 to open hospital, Anas Sarwar says<\/strong><\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n For example, just 17% of Scots have a positive view of Keir Starmer, while three quarters (74%) see the Prime Minister in a negative light. This includes 2024 Labour voters being twice as likely to see the party\u2019s leader unfavourably (64%) as favourably (32%).\n<\/p>\n

\n Other UK-wide party leaders are also not popular north of the Border, with Scots seeing Nigel Farage unfavourably by a margin of 69% to 24%, Kemi Badenoch<\/a> by 58% to 17%, and Ed Davey by 37% to 22%.\n<\/p>\n

\n Just 18% of Scots hold a favourable opinion of Anas Sarwar, while 52% see the Scottish Labour leader in a negative light, including nearly half (45%) of 2024 Labour voters, more than the 31% who see him favourably.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The survey \u2013 which comes just three months away from the Scottish parliament election \u2013 makes for better…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-729292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115980223758206971","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}