Latest YouGov Scottish polling

Following the TNS poll earlier this week that showed the SNP catching Labour in Holyrood voting intentions, there is a new YouGov poll for the Scotsman that shows them ahead in constituency voting intention. Voting intentions stand at...

Westminster: CON 17%, LAB 46%, LDEM 6%, SNP 26% Holyrood Constituency: CON 11%, LAB 39%, LDEM 5%, SNP 40% Holyrood Regional: CON 12%, LAB 39%, LDEM 5%, SNP 32%, Greens 6%

Note that YouGov polls for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly have now moved onto a campaign footing, so are being weighted by likelihood to vote, hence I haven't included changes from the previous poll. In this case likelihood to vote didn't actually make much difference - increasing SNP & Lab by 1 point each in the constituency vote, and decreasing the Lib Dems by 1 point in the regional vote. The poll was conducted before the first Scottish leaders' debate.

The SNP have overtaken Labour in the constituency vote, but Labour remain ahead in the regional vote, which tends to be more important in deciding who actually ends up with more seats. John Curtice's projection in the Scotsman has these shares of the vote translating into 57 seats for Labour, 48 for the SNP, 13 for the Conservatives, 6 for the Greens and 5 for the Liberal Democrats. Historically Labour have actually tended to do worse, not better, in the regional vote, so the pattern here is somewhat unusual - looking at the data it seems to be because people who would vote Green or SSP in the regional vote are more likely to vote SNP in the constituency vote.

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