Undecideds and vote switchers could yet deliver a surprise in May

The campaign has not even officially begun and already this Scottish Parliament elections feels lacklustre. Set against a backdrop of rising global tensions, dissatisfaction with both of Scotland’s governments, and high levels of pessimism, it would take a sizeable rabbit out the hat for any party to give this campaign some pizzazz. 

Even the SNP, which continues to poll well ahead of its opponents nationally, is suffering from a sense of malaise. Despite being on course for a record third decade in power, it is set to do so on its lowest ever vote share – suggesting little enthusiasm from the electorate for another SNP-led Scottish Government. And yet because of the state of the opposition parties, there seems little other direction for Scotland to take.

This election isn’t one without interest, though. The make-up of the parliament will be significantly changed, with a host of new faces to be elected after the departure of some of the old guard. John Swinney, if he becomes first minister, will be required to find some fresh blood for his Cabinet since four of the 11 (all women) are standing down. And Swinney himself may be forced to reckon with his own future sooner than he planned, as his stated ambition to secure a majority of seats could put a time limit on his tenure as leader.

Then there’s the expected success of upstart party Reform UK, on course to elect a glut of MSPs and effectively replace the Conservatives as Scotland’s main right-wing party. Russell Findlay’s group is expected to do poorly, which might force his resignation as leader too.

How well Labour does continues to be a point of intrigue. Some polls suggest it could seize back its place as second largest party while others suggest it could see its worst performance since devolution. But anything short of entering power will be seen as a failure for Anas Sarwar, who has wedded his career to becoming the next first minister.

There is also the growing popularity of the Greens, helped by an uplift in support for its sister party south of the border, and the possible revival of the Liberal Democrats off the back of a series of successful council by-elections.

Yet despite all of this, the key moments of the campaign so far have been about damage limitation.

The SNP has had to replace two of its candidates in the last month. Parliamentary staffer Sally Donald, who was supposed to contest Edinburgh Southern, stepped back after it emerged she was being investigated by Social Security Scotland’s counter-fraud team. While she denied any wrongdoing, opponents were able to point to Donald as proof of a welfare system too easy to manipulate. It was not helped by the fact Donald, who was ordered to repay almost £20,000, had infamously posted on social media about getting on the SNP “gravy bus”.

Days later, Stefan Hoggan quit as the SNP’s Fife North East candidate following allegations of misconduct. Details on the complaint against Hoggan are sparse and, since he has now quit the party, the SNP will not investigate further. But both cases raise questions about the SNP’s vetting process.

Over in Labour’s campaign, Sarwar’s biggest moment has been his call for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to quit. While clearly part of a strategy to put some distance between him and an unpopular UK Government, there is little evidence the risk will pay any dividends. The failure to make any cut through with many of its key issues, such as problems at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital or the state of the NHS more broadly, does not speak to a healthy campaign.

Even Malcolm Offord, the former Conservative minister who now leads Reform in Scotland, has had his gaffes to deal with. He found himself in hot water when he said he could “tell by the photographs” that immigration was a factor in an Edinburgh knife attack; he later had to deny his comments were fuelling racial tensions. Meanwhile his party has kept quiet on who its candidates will be (though this is expected to be announced by the time this magazine is published), which many view as an attempt to limit scrutiny before the election.

With less than seven weeks to go, all parties will need to pull out all the stops to try to enthuse a bored and frustrated electorate. The experts behind the Scottish Election Study (SES) – which has mapped elections and voter behaviour for nearly 30 years – believe this election could see one of the lowest turnouts on record. The number of people who say they are certain to vote on 7 May is considerably down from the level it has been at this point in the campaign in more recent elections.

This could have major implications for the result. Historically, lower turnout tends to have hurt the SNP – but the SES found this time around those who intend to vote for the party also say they will definitely vote in May. Meanwhile, Labour and Liberal Democrat voters report being less likely to vote in this election.

Herein also lies Scottish Labour’s reason for optimism. Party campaigners and strategists believe they can blow away all expectations and put Sarwar in Bute House so long as they can get their voters to turn up. To onlookers that might seem fanciful, but the party is planning to use the lessons learned in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election of last year where this exact scenario played out. The party did not increase its support in the constituency, but it did do better at getting its voters into polling booths than the other parties. On top of that, internal data puts races in central belt seats similar to Hamilton far closer than national polling would suggest. A small uptick in support could result in many of these constituencies flipping from yellow to red.

However, the emergence of Reform adds a new dimension to these constituency contests. Unlike the Scottish Conservatives, who have never had much success in these areas, the party may be able to make some of them three-horse races. That, at least, is the narrative the party is keen to push. As is the case elsewhere in the UK, Reform’s best hope of victory may be to rely on the left-wing vote splitting between two or more contenders.

At the same time, there are signs the SNP is hoping to capitalise on the anti-Reform vote. Despite such a strategy not working in Hamilton – Swinney infamously described it as a “two-horse race” between the SNP and Reform – there are whispers that strategists are looking to mirror the performance of Plaid Cymru and the Greens in the recent Caerphilly and Gorton and Denton Westminster by-elections.

Professor Ailsa Henderson, principal investigator for SES, says this would be a risky strategy to pursue for the SNP because it does not take into account the impact of the constitutional question. While a less salient issue overall, it continues to play a role on voter choice. She explains: “We know from 2021 that we’re up around 90 per cent alignment between constitutional preference and party preference. So for that [strategy] to work, the people on whom that would work most obviously would be people who would otherwise be voting Green. The trick is whether they can convince Labour voters to back the SNP in an effort to remove Reform. And if we look at who people are trying to stop, Labour’s really interesting – because about half the tactical Labour vote is an anti-SNP tactical vote, and half the tactical Labour vote is an anti-Reform tactical vote.”

Perhaps this explains why Swinney has spent very little of the campaign so far talking about his independence ambitions, despite his party’s position being that winning a majority would provide a mandate for another referendum. Even his speech to the party faithful at spring conference was fairly light on mentions of separation, beyond the assertion that it is “within our grasp” and that the “first SNP vote elects an SNP government… and your second SNP vote delivers independence”.

There are some sections of the SNP membership who believe being deprived of a majority may help long-term strategy. It would, the argument goes, give Swinney permission to focus solely on governing without the distraction of an independence campaign. This would take it back to the strategy favoured by former leader Alex Salmond: prove you can govern well and independence support will follow.

Others, though, say that failing to get the majority would trash the opportunity to deliver independence for the foreseeable, and take Swinney’s career with it.

Even if Swinney does beat the odds and get that majority, the UK Government has already said it would not grant the power for the Scottish Parliament to hold a fresh plebiscite. It is particularly difficult to see the prime minister agreeing to that if the SNP majority comes about on just a third of the popular vote.

Yet the final result in May could yet surprise everyone. The electorate has become increasingly volatile in the last decade, with fewer people feeling any affiliation to any political party and more voters remaining undecided until very late in the campaign.

Dr Hannah Bunting, co-director of the Elections Centre at Exeter University, has been tracking trends in undecided voters. Typically, these are people who “pay less attention to politics overall and have weaker attachments to political parties”, she explains. But they aren’t totally unpredictable either, often being undecided between two choices. “That’s often bound by the ideological things that we would expect, so if somebody is more left-leaning they are going to be considering parties who are on the left. They’re not usually bouncing between Reform and the Greens, right? They’re either usually Labour and the Greens, or Reform and Conservative.”

So, what makes the difference for this cohort of people – or if they are even convinced to vote at all? “That can really depend on the campaign and how persuasive either local candidates or the parties are in general,” Bunting says. “If there’s no clear difference or a limited clear difference between these parties that are on offer, then the research suggests that those people who are undecided are less likely to then turn out and vote.”

Tactical voting can be a “huge motivator”, she adds, but only when there is a “clear” rival to the candidate voters explicitly don’t want. “When it’s a bit less clear, we might not see that. We might see traditional splitting of the vote because people don’t particularly know which one is best to use their tactical vote on.”

It’s not just undecideds that create this air of uncertainty. Polling from Ipsos found that four in 10 Scots who declared support for one party also said they may change their mind.

Interestingly those who intend to vote Reform are least likely to say they would switch. That tallies with research from SES. Dr Fraser McMillan, a lecturer in electoral politics at the University of Edinburgh, says: “Reform UK supporters in Scotland are very, very opposed to the idea of voting for a different party. They don’t want to behave strategically, they’re sick of doing that because a lot of them were previously doing that to keep the SNP out. But now they have an alternative to everyone, because they’ve gone off the Tories [and] they’ve gone off Labour.” At the same time, Reform was the party other voters were least likely to switch to.

As for the other parties, nearly half of Conservative supporters (48 per cent) and 42 per cent of Labour supporters said they might change their mind. Conservative voters are most likely to move to Reform, while Labour voters are most likely to switch to the Liberal Democrats – reflecting the ongoing sway of the constitutional argument. But the poll also found nearly a quarter of Labour supporters would consider switching to the SNP and a similar number of SNP supporters would consider Labour, perhaps as a response to the threat of Reform.

And while Scottish Green supporters – many of whom won’t have the option to back a Green candidate on the lilac ballot – tend to consider the SNP as their second choice (43 per cent), a not inconsiderable amount (38 per cent) look to the Lib Dems and one in five would think about backing Labour.

A small number of voters switching allegiances or going from undecided to casting a ballot could radically alter the outcome of the election, given how close individual constituency races could be.

Bunting says: “We’re seeing a bit of a paradox where people think, ‘it doesn’t matter who I vote for so I’m going to sit this one out’, whereas actually their vote has really never been more important because it could be a couple of streets in some areas, literally one tiny community can completely change the election result.

“They are massively important and parties are right to focus their efforts on those undecided people, but how they do that is a tricky one because you don’t know whether they’re undecided because you’re too right wing or you’re too left wing or they don’t like the leader.

“There’s a whole host of reasons why people might be considering voting for you but not definitely going to vote for you.

“How you tailor that to get undecided people to put a cross in your box, well, I wouldn’t want to be a strategist in thinking about how to do that.”