The next elections for members of the Scottish Parliament are likely to be held in May 2026. Parties from Unionist parties based in England will be competing with Scottish parties that support Scotland regaining independence. How easy it is it to predict their success?
This page covers:
- A summary of the Scottish Parliament election process;
- How to use the Excel Prediction Model to see the results of your own scenarios (with a link to download the model); and
- A walkthrough of some Example Scenarios that demonstrate the model and its logic.
Each scenario is explained in detail below. But if you just want the punchline:
From these example scenarios, the safest approach is for SNP voters to choose a different Scottish party for their 2nd vote. This is actually better for the SNP, which with the Scottish Greens, would have a much larger majority in Government. It would also see Alba being elected to seats for the first time.
The Scottish Parliament election process
The process consists of two votes.
The 1st Vote: This is for a Constituency MSP, based on First Past The Post (like Westminster elections). The candidate with most votes wins. No other votes count. This favours large parties and excludes smaller parties from winning seats (feel familiar?).
The 2nd Vote: this is for a Party in a Region. Seasts are awarded to candidates in the fixed order provided by each Party. If standing in both, Consituency takes priority for a win. All votes count and this is where smaller parties can win seats.
The allocation of seats is based on a “d’Hondt” process and is a much simplified version of that used for all seats in Denmark – which is considered the most inclusive parliamentary voting system in the World. There are eight Regions and seven seats awarded per Region.
A seat is awarded in up to seven Rounds. In each round this calculation is completion for each party:
Each party is ranked and the one with most “votes to rank” in this Round, using the above calculation, is awarded a Regional seat. This continues until seven seats have been awarded.
In Regions, Independent candidates are treated the same as a Party.
A model to help predict the result
Here is a Microsoft Excel Workbook designed to help you predict the results of the election. You enter your prediction of each party’s vote shares, and it models the election and the results of the 2021 election to try to predict the outcome.
It also includes some pre-prepared Scenarios to get you started. These are discussed below.
Using the model
Its very easy to use the model. Just download it from the link above and open it in Microsoft Excel. If you see this warning, you’ll need to select “Enable Editing” to be able to try out your own scenarios.
You may also need to make sure you have enabled “macros” for the scenario program to run. There’s a description of how to do this here. Once you’re ready here’s how to use it to run your own scenarios:
- Go to the “Model” tab;
- Locate the input cells in the rows called “Modelled Vote Share in 2026”. These are Orange;
- Enter the percentage vote shares for 1st and 2nd votes for each Party that you want to model – if it adds up to more or less than 100% you’ll be warned. This may be OK e.g. if you want to model a smaller or larger turnout. The change from the 2021 election is shown below each cell.
- Click the button “Re-run Regional Modeller”; and
- That’s it! You’ll see the Predicted Results listed below your vote share entries.
Above your scenario you’ll see the 2021 election results summarised. And in case its any use, the 2024 Westminster election results are summarised at the bottom. In this election the voting in Scotland was very much tainted by the “remove the Tories” message from Labour, to The SNP’s cost. But nontheless it may be a useful secondary reference – e.g. to consider the Tory vs Reform split in your input.
Example Scenarios
The following example scenarious are contained in the “Scenarios” tab. These use the model with various combinations of vote share and their predictions look like this:
Two recent independent polls are used – from Norstat for The Times, and Survation. Some of our own predictions are also included for comparison.
Poll Scenarios
Norstat/The Times and Survation polls look like this. Suggested vote shares, excluding undecided and don’t knows, and weighted by geography, come from the polling data. The results come from the model:
Nortstat suggests that the Unionist parties could form a majority government IF they all colluded together in a coalition of some sort. Conversley, the Scottish parties can’t reach a majority – but could form the largest coalition (and hence Government) if the Unionists don’t cooperate enough.
Survation suggests that the SNP and Greens could form an outright majority government – and the Unionists couldn’t, even if they ALL cooperated.
In neither case doe the small Scottish parties get any seats – in fact Survation data results in a prediction that Reform doesn’t either.
SNP 1+2 Scenario
This is the author’s current estimaste of Holyrood election vote share based on a preference for SNP voters to give the party their votes both for Constituency and Regional (1+2) choices.
In this Scenario the small Scottish parties still end up with no MSPs. The SNP fails to achieve the 65 MSPs needed for a majority so Scotland would be back seeing the SNP trying to woo the Scottish Greens to form Government.
Again the Unionist parties collectively cannot find a majority.
SNP Collapse Scenario
This is perhaps the most interesting Scenario – the one with the perhaps most unexpected outcome. What if the SNP vote share dropped hugely – even below what the party achieved at the Westminster election? This is what the model predicts:
SNP: To simulate a true political disaster, the vote share for the SNP is halved to a level well below their actual vote share in any Holyrood election since the Scottish Parliament was reformed in 1999:
Alba, ISP, Scottish Greens: All benefit from this desertion by voters of the SNP, reaching their highest levels of vote share in Scotland, ever.
Labour, Lib Dems: Both benefit a little and achieve even larger vote shares. In particular, Labour receives a vote share substantially larger than it has ever received in a Holyrood election:
The Tories and Reform are unchanged from the previous scenarios.
SNP Collapse Predicted Outcome
So whilst Alba and Scottish Greens come out well in this Scenario, the Scottish parties have insufficient for an outright majority.
Conversley Labour could form a majority with the Lib Dems – or Tory and Reform combined.
SNP 1 and Scottish Party 2 Scenario
Here the SNP outcome doesn’t change from SNP 1+2; instead the Scottish parties pick up more MSP seats from the Regional vote – including Alba and the Scottish Greens. This is at the cost of the Unionist parties. So whilst the SNP would still need to negotiate with the Greens for an outright majority, they would be in a much stronger position against the Unionists.
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