{"id":751184,"date":"2026-02-08T19:24:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T19:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/751184\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T19:24:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T19:24:21","slug":"we-ran-a-polling-simulation-of-1000-holyrood-elections-heres-the-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/751184\/","title":{"rendered":"We ran a polling simulation of 1000 Holyrood elections. Here’s the results"},"content":{"rendered":"

THERE is a 99.7% chance of voters returning a pro-independence majority at the next Scottish Parliament election, according to a simulation of 1000 Holyrood<\/a> contests.<\/p>\n

The simulation, run using software developed by the Devolved Elections team<\/a>, uses polling averages and random variations to predict 1000 different ways the Holyrood election on May 7 could go.<\/p>\n

Dr Eoghan Kelly \u2013 who created the system alongside his software engineer partner Ayushi Gupta \u2013 said it helps give an insight into polling results by simulating things such as regional variations, voting patterns across wealthy or poorer areas or urban and rural ones, or margins of error in polling.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor each party, sometimes it’ll be 0.5% over, sometimes it’ll be 3% down,\u201d he explained. \u201cAll of those things are randomised, and then they’re all done on a bell curve.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> John Curtice’s two-word verdict on Anas Sarwar’s chances of leading Scotland<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe protect the numbers at all times, so the swings don’t knock the numbers out. The numbers stay the same, but how it’s distributed changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the Sunday National ran a simulation, it predicted a 99.7% chance of a pro-independence majority, composed of the SNP<\/a> and Greens. Seat totals of pro-independence MSPs were projected to vary between 80 at the highest and 64 at the lowest, with a mean result of 72.5.<\/p>\n

By party, an average of the 1000 simulations predicted that the SNP are set to return 61.5 MSPs, while the Greens return 11. On the Unionist side, Labour were projected to win 17.8 seats, Reform UK 17.3, the Tories<\/a> 12.2, and the LibDems 9.2.<\/p>\n

Possible seat totals from 1000 election simulations (Image: Graph plotted from Devolved Elections’ simulation results)<\/p>\n

The 1000-election simulation also projects the probability of each party winning each constituency seat. It said that some seats \u2013 such as John Swinney<\/a>\u2019s Perthshire North and Shirley-Anne Somerville\u2019s Dunfermline<\/a> \u2013 had a greater than 99.9% chance of being won by the SNP.<\/p>\n

However, it also predicted an election battle in Edinburgh<\/a> Central, where Culture Secretary Angus Robertson was given a 31.8% of retaining his seat, while the Greens\u2019 Lorna Slater<\/a> was given a 57.3% chance of scooping it.<\/p>\n

Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire was projected to be the closest contested constituency in Scotland, with Reform UK given a 50.5% chance of winning it, against the Tories on 47.9%.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> 7 things we learnt from latest Scottish election poll<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Next was Argyll and Bute<\/a>, where the SNP were given a 55.6% chance of winning against the LibDems on 44.4%.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the Devolved Elections website also features a \u201cNowcast\u201d, which uses the last six months of polling, weighted according to recency, to predict how the election might go. Kelly described this as the \u201cbaseline\u201d that the other features lean on.<\/p>\n

When the Sunday National used the service on Friday, it predicted that the SNP would return 62 MSPs, with Labour a distant second on 18. Reform UK were projected to win 17, the Tories 11, the Greens 11, and the LibDems 10.<\/p>\n

Seat counts (Image: A ‘Nowcast’ snapshot from DevolvedElections.co.uk)<\/p>\n

The site also allows users to run 1000 simulated Welsh parliamentary elections \u2013 which are also due to be held on May 7 this year. When the Sunday National did so, it gave the pro-independence Plaid Cymru an 81.7% chance of emerging as the largest party, against Reform UK on 18.3%.<\/p>\n

Labour, who have run the Senedd since devolution was introduced, were given a 0% chance of winning the 2026 elections.<\/p>\n

Kelly \u2013 a polling expert who lectures at Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s University, Belfast, while also running the Polling London Project at the Mile End Institute of Queen Mary University of London \u2013 said he had come up with the idea for the system while working at the Scottish Election Study.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIt’s hard to visualise what poll numbers mean, particularly in [an additional member, proportional representation system] where you’ve got two different ballots and they interact in a very specific way.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Richard Walker: The Jeffrey Epstein saga has exposed a Union beyond repair<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd with the sheer volume of parties, now that Reform are in the mix and everyone’s getting 10 to 30%, it’s very hard to visualise. So I just thought, I’ll go make one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Explaining the system, Kelly said: \u201cThere are margins of errors for each party in each direction; sometimes all of the things go right or wrong for a party.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you do it over and over again, you will get variations, but the core will remain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if a 1000-simulation run of a poll could end up more accurate than the poll itself, he said: \u201cThat’s the theory. It depends on the polls. We don’t run the polls, so we’re at the mercy of the pollsters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s also part of the benefit. If the polls are overestimating, sometimes you can still sort of see where that will happen. So if the SNP are being overestimated, you can get a vague idea of where they’ll fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

SNP leader John Swinney may lead a pro-independence majority despite not winning the majority of the votes<\/p>\n

The polling expert said that polling and simulations consistently showed that a majority of votes in Scotland were set to go to Unionist parties \u2013 despite simultaneous projections of a pro-independence majority of MSPs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pro-indy thing in Scotland is being boosted by the electoral system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Unionists are probably going to win a comfortable majority of the votes, mid-50s, but the system boosts parties that win the constituencies, and the SNP are winning the constituencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly said that designing the Holyrood system to favour the constituency vote was \u201ca deliberate ploy by Labour\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the plan. It didn’t work out very well, but it was the plan. They could have made it more equal by having the same number of list seats and constituency seats, but they chose not to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

You can find the election simulation tool, as well as other resources including seat projection calculators and voting system explanations, on the DevolvedElections.co.uk<\/a> website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THERE is a 99.7% chance of voters returning a pro-independence majority at the next Scottish Parliament election, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8816],"tags":[221399,748,221400,1102,221396,4884,210591,7852,126633,221397,221398,386,712,464,16,15],"class_list":["post-751184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edinburgh","tag-ayushi-gupta","tag-britain","tag-devolved-elections","tag-edinburgh","tag-eoghan-kelly","tag-great-britain","tag-holyrood-election","tag-john-swinney","tag-libdems","tag-polling-results","tag-pro-independence","tag-reform-uk","tag-scotland","tag-simulation","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116036649838241044","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751184","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=751184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}