Why tactical voting can stop SNP getting a majority but is unlikely to end their Holyrood dominance
The rise of Reform UK has made it harder to identify the best way to vote tactically against the SNP
Despite being much less popular than at the last Holyrood election in 2021, the SNP are seemingly set to dominate the next parliament just as they did the last one. Indeed, some polls have suggested the party could even win the overall majority that just eluded it – by one seat – last time around.
The explanation is simple. Although SNP support is some dozen points down on 2021, so is the Conservative vote. Meanwhile, Labour may be heading for its worst Scottish result ever. Both have lost ground to Reform. As a result, the SNP find themselves still well ahead of all their opponents – with a chance to win the vast bulk of the constituency seats.
Faced with this possibility, some unionists hope their supporters will cast their constituency vote tactically for whichever party seems best placed locally to defeat the SNP. Indeed, at the last election such tactical switching by unionist voters may well have succeeded in denying the SNP a majority.
Reform or the SNP?
However, the rise of Reform has complicated the picture. While many supporters of unionist parties are antipathetic to the SNP, many also have severe doubts about Reform. Moreover, Labour supporters cannot be relied upon either to switch tactically to the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats.
The ‘MRP’ polls that have attempted to anticipate the outcome in every individual constituency suggest Reform will often be the SNP’s principal competitors locally. YouGov puts the number at 28 seats, More in Common, 27.
When Survation recently asked voters how they’d vote if they thought the battle in their seat was between the SNP and Reform, many Conservatives said they would switch to Reform. However, one-in-three Labour supporters and one-in-four Liberal Democrats indicated they would back the SNP. Consequently, tactical switching left the SNP’s reported poll lead over Reform undiminished.
The Lib Dem effect
In contrast, presented with a local battle between the SNP and the Liberal Democrats, the estimated nationalist lead fell by eight points – primarily because of an apparent readiness by Conservative supporters (but not their Labour counterparts) to switch to Alex Cole-Hamilton’s party. However, the MRP polls suggest only eight or nine seats will be SNP vs Liberal Democrat contests.
In the case of an SNP-Conservative contest, locally the reduction in the estimated nationalist lead was just three points – Labour voters were as likely to switch to the SNP as the Conservatives. Thanks to some hesitancy among Conservative and Reform supporters, at four points, even the reduction in the nationalist lead was not much higher when voters were asked about an SNP-Labour battle.
Still, between them, the MRP polls suggest that impacts of this size on the SNP lead could cost the party some four or five seats. While these are losses the party can’t afford if it’s to win an overall majority, tactical voting looks unlikely to have sufficient impact to end the SNP’s dominance at Holyrood.
Moreover, these estimates assume that unionist voters all correctly identify who is best able to challenge the SNP in their seat. Yet the fragmentation of unionist support occasioned by Reform’s rise will likely make this far from straightforward. The SNP, at least, will be hoping that this indeed proves to be the case.
John Curtice is professor of politics, Strathclyde University, and senior fellow, Scottish Centre for Social Research and ‘The UK in a Changing Europe’.
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