Talk:Opinion polling for the 2021 Scottish Parliament election

Lead Over Party
Personally I think on the lead part of the tables there should be text indicating how much one party is leading over the next closest party. This is due to Scotland becoming a 3 party system and the lead column should reflect that. Many people will suggest that doing this is unconventional however it has already been used in Opinion polling for the United Kingdom general election, 2010 for the CON / LAB / LIB race and European Parliament election, 2014 (United Kingdom) opinion polls with the CON / LAB / UKIP. JDuggan101 (talk) 20:30, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Scottish politics has been multi-party since 1999, there's been no particular demand for a change in the 'lead' indicator. People can just glance over to see which party is the 2nd party if they are interested. The key thing people want to know from polls is a) Who's ahead and b) by how much. The conventional model (i.e. 'lead 6%') does this just fine and doesn't crowd the information box with text when people want numbers. FriendlyDataNerdV2 (talk) 19:35, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

seat projection section
So a new poll from The Daily Record and Survation comes with a seat projection (DR link / Survation). I don't know whether this is has been happening before but should we create a seat projection section? Jonjonjohny (talk) 08:56, 28 October 2018 (UTC) I know that the new Scot Goes Pop poll also included seat projections so I think this could be a good idea.Etonamore (talk) 23:03, 24 January 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Etonamore (talk • contribs) 17:55, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Other Parties
Shouldn't we add columns for Other parties like the SSP if they're polled separately? That YouGov Times poll has the SSP on 2%, which is actually more than ChangeUK or UKIP are polling on the regional list. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:43, 7 October 2019 (UTC)


 * It is also clear that UKIP need not appear on the table at all. I suggest replacing it with Alba given recent developments. Are UKIP even running candidates in constituencies/list? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.2.100.98 (talk) 17:43, 28 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm not entirely sure what the policy is but my guess is that it will cease to be listed separately on the new page after the May election but that it will remain in this table as a matter of record. Akerbeltz (talk) 18:02, 28 March 2021 (UTC)


 * OK- is ALBA being added in? I have no love for them but will it depend on polling? Dont know if they are even going to be added in (I suspect they will be)


 * If they appear in a poll with their own %, they'll get added in with a new column. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:35, 31 March 2021 (UTC)


 * You could add Alba and remove SSP as they are not standing in any region JezEuansson (talk) 15:21, 1 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Official lists now known. Standing in all eight regions: Alba, Greens, SNP, Labour, LibDems, Conservatives, Libertarians, Scottish Family Party, Abolish Scottish Parliament Party, Reform UK, UKIP, Alliance For Unity, Freedom Alliance. Which does not mean all should be included in the tables. Just saying. JezEuansson (talk) 15:26, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Ipsos MORI - All or 9/10 likely to vote
For the latest Ipsos MORI poll are we using the "All (giving an opinion)" or "All 9/10 likely to vote" figures? Either way, we have them wrong. I'll adjust to "9/10 likely to vote" for now, as that is what they use in the headlines and there seems a good case to use the 9/10 likely to vote as that probably reflects what would happen on an election day. Looking at the PDF version of the tables the numbers are SNP/Lab/Con/LD/Green/Other=Ind+Other are: 58/14/18/8/1/2 (table 1 - Base : All), 58/13/19/8/1/1 (table 4 - Base : All 9/10 likely to vote). Rwendland (talk) 20:08, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Where is the Express/Elecotral Calculus 23-26 March 2021 Result?
Although the Independence section of the Find Out Now/Electoral Calculus (for the Express) Poll has been published on the independence page, the Election polling has not been added here. Can it be added? (I do not actually know the breakdown).

Thank you for doing it!

Something has messed up the Table - the "Sample size" and "Date" boxes have moved sideways and all the data is now skewed - 30/3/2021 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.2.100.98 (talk) 14:43, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Constituency or regional vote first?
Does anyone have strong opinions on which way round the two tables should go? I had moved them so that the list vote came first (prompted in part by discussion at Talk:2021 Scottish Parliament election), as it determines the spread of seats overall and could be considered to reflect voter's intentions more clearly than the constituency vote (as some parties such as the Greens don't stand in many constituencies). However an IP reverted this earlier today, saying that the constituency vote is more important as there are more constituencies (73) than list seats (56). Thanks, PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 15:51, 30 March 2021 (UTC)


 * The regional vote share only determines seat composition to a point. Parties that dominate the constituency vote (recently SNP, previously Labour) get seat totals that are considerably in excess of their regional vote share, e.g. in 2011, the SNP won 69/129 seats (53%) despite "only" receiving 44% of the regional vote. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 06:00, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Should we include UKIP?
The party hasn't been included in any opinion polls (either constituency or regional) since 3 November 2020 (where it polled at 1%) and it doesn't appear it’s going to be included again any time soon. I would advocate removing it as we did in a similar matter here. Helper201 (talk) 14:05, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree. The party seems to be totally irrelevant at this point and pollsters don’t include it for a while --FantinoFalco (talk) 18:04, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree, we should remove it. Maybe bundle it in with "Other" for the polls that contained it. PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 21:09, 3 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I disagree, UKIP polled 2% in the last election and continued to poll at a significant level (c. 3%) until they were basically supplanted by Farage's new vehicle (Brexit Party). I think it's worthwhile keeping them in the table to show that movement. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 07:41, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Remove AFU
AFU have appeared in only one poll. It seems silly to include them in a table and the graph on that basis. I suggest removing the AFU column/line. A footnote on the Other result an indicate their result in that one poll. Bondegezou (talk) 07:22, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Done - they haven't shown up at all in other polls (e.g. <0.5% in the Mori poll released yesterday). Jmorrison230582 (talk) 08:56, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

The polling for Alba is in the 2-3% range. AFU have shown up at 4%. Including one and excluding the other smacks of bias. AFU are essentially hoping to pull off the same trick as Alba in terms of gaming the t'hondt counting system. I think that if polling data is available it ought to be shown. RERTwiki (talk) 20:15, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * There was only one poll that put AFU at 4%, the Panelbase poll last weekend that also had Alba on 6%. This appears to have been because Panelbase prompted for both Alba and AFU, giving them the same prominence as the more established parties. In all of the other polls AFU have been at or below 1%, whereas Alba have consistently polled 2% or 3%. As long as the 4% outcome looks like a one-off, I think it is more reasonable to include it within others and add a note. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 08:29, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Suggest add shorter term graphs
Hi. Over at polling for Scottish Independence, there was a suggestion to chart the recent polls as well as just the long term. The recent trends are entirely obscure in the long term graph, and are really what people are interested in at this time. In Excel it is just a case of restricting the range of the time axis, but I don't know how the chart is being built.

Could whoever does the charts consider this suggestion?RERTwiki (talk) 20:22, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The current chart is made by . I would support a recent-trend chart, possibly for polls since the start of the year? PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 09:56, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * It might be a little hard to keep that nice Template:Switcher though. Wouldn't the visibility problems be solved too by just resizing the points representing the individual polls? --Gbuvn (talk) 10:14, 12 April 2021 (UTC)