Comment: Polling shows the opposition will struggle to dent the SNP's lead

With less than three months to go before the Holyrood elections, the latest Ipsos MORI poll, published last week, yet again finds the SNP riding high – 52 per cent of likely voters are minded to give them their constituency vote, and 47 per cent favour them for the regional list.

Any political party in a democracy would be delighted with figures like these – let alone one which has been in power for almost 14 years.

Yet while the SNP are in an undeniably and enviably strong position, retaining a lead of this size will be challenging. And their support has slipped back, slightly but significantly, from a high point in October 2020 when as many as 58 per cent planned to vote SNP on their constituency vote.

With this in mind, as we look towards the election campaign, all the parties will be playing close attention to the issues that matter most to voters – and where they might be able to tempt voters away from their opponents.

Underneath the headline findings on voting intention and support for independence, Ipsos MORI’s poll provides some clues as to what these might be.

The findings suggest that the election is likely, yet again, to be dominated by the constitutional question – when asked what issues will be very important to them in deciding which party to vote for, 44 per cent of likely voters mentioned Scottish independence or devolution.

Education was the next most common topic (32 per cent), followed by health and the NHS (25 per cent).

Surprisingly, given the extent to which it has dominated our lives over the last year, the Coronavirus pandemic was mentioned by only 20 per cent of likely voters as a key issue influencing their vote.

The continued dominance of the constitutional question in voters’ minds might perhaps be seen as helpful to the SNP and the Scottish Conservatives, both of whom appear likely to make their clear (and clearly opposed) positions on this issue a central campaign issue.

However, for Scottish Labour, it may be less welcome news – avoiding alienating unionist voters without losing support to the SNP presents them with a tricky tightrope to walk.

In fact, their own voters appear less slightly inclined to see independence as the key issue – 39 per cent of Labour supporters mentioned it as a very important issue shaping their vote, compared with 51 per cent of Conservatives and 48 per cent of SNP supporters.

But if they are to win over support from these other parties, they cannot avoid engaging with the issue that, for many voters, appears to be among their main concerns in the lead up to voting day.

As well as crucial decisions about their precise pitch to the public on the issues, the parties are also likely to be weighing who is best placed to sell their policies for them.

In terms of how the public views the party leaders, the SNP again have a huge advantage over their opponents – 64 per cent of the Scottish public are satisfied with how Nicola Sturgeon is doing her job as First Minister, with 32 per cent dissatisfied (a ‘net’ rating of +32).

In line with support for the SNP overall, ratings of Sturgeon are down slightly compared with Autumn 2020 (she had a ‘net’ rating of +48 in our October poll). However, she is still clearly well regarded by much of the Scottish public.

In comparison, none of the other main party leaders fare particularly well in the eyes of the public – Douglas Ross has a net rating of -12 (indicating that more are dissatisfied than satisfied).

This is considerably lower than the positive ‘net’ score of +8 received by Ruth Davidson at the same point in 2016 (based on Ipsos MORI’s Scotland poll conducted 1^st-7^th February 2016). Willie Rennie currently has a net score of +6, and Patrick Harvie is rated slightly higher, at +12.

In addition to their lower overall ratings, all Nicola Sturgeon’s counterparts also suffer from a relative lack of public recognition – a substantial proportion of the Scottish electorate do not know how to rate Ross (32 per cent), Rennie (36 per cent) or Harvie (42 per cent), compared with just 4 per cent who do not know if they are satisfied or dissatisfied with Sturgeon. Raising their profile will be as much of the challenge for Scotland’s opposition leaders as improving how the public views them.

This will be even more of a challenge for the new Scottish Labour leader, who will have far less time to make an impression on the electorate.

As of late February, 44 per cent of the Scottish public did not know which of Monica Lennon or Anas Sarwar would make the better leader.

Among those who did express a view, Sarwar was narrowly more popular among both the public as a whole (28 per cent vs 25 per cent who thought Lennon would be the better leader), and among Labour supporters (40 per cent vs 35 per cent).

However, among SNP supporters – who Scottish Labour need to win over in substantial numbers to improve their current electoral fortunes – Monica Lennon is very slightly more popular (29 per cent vs 26 per cent).

Given the events of last week, the opposition parties may well be hoping that the continuing fall-out from the Salmond inquiry will open up a chink in the SNP armour for them to exploit.

However, our poll suggests this is far from certain. Although 20 per cent of 2016 SNP voters said the Parliament Inquiry into how the Scottish Government handled accusations against Salmond had made them less favourable towards the SNP, 91 per cent of those who voted SNP in 2016 intend to do so again.

Meanwhile, only 1 per cent of voters mentioned the Salmond inquiry when asked about the issues that might influence their vote.

It is clear, then, that the opposition parties have their work cut out to make any further dent in the SNP’s lead – and would be unwise to rely on external events doing this for them.

Rachel Ormston is a research director at Ipsos MORI Scotland.