Looking at the final call polls for the constituency vote (below), they average out at 48.7% for the SNP, 21.3% for the Tories, 20.6% for Labour and 7.3% for the Lib Dems. Removing Savanta Comres’ ludicrous outlier, that becomes an average of 49.8% for the SNP, 20.6% for the Tories, 20.3% for Labour and 7.1% for the Lib Dems. The Greens average 1.1%, although they don’t register on some polls. Depending on which average you look at, it represents a swing of 2-3 points away from the unionist parties towards the SNP relative to 2016, and a 5-6 point swing to the SNP relative to the 2019 General Election. With that national environment in mind, the map above is my final, authoritative prediction - with three degrees of confidence.
Of 73 constituencies - The Tories are favoured in three - one safe (Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire), one likely (Dumfriesshire) and one leaning (Galloway and West Dumfries). The Lib Dems are favoured in four constituencies - three safe (Orkney, Shetland, N.E. Fife) , and one likely (Edinburgh Western). Labour are favoured in one constituency, but only “likely” - Edinburgh Southern. There are seven seats which lean toward the SNP, and a further seven are likely to go SNP. This leaves 51 constituencies across Scotland in which the SNP are prohibitive favourites to win. This basic fact alone is the bedrock upon which the inevitability of the party returning to government in one way or another is assured. That leaves 18 seats which can be assumed to be at least some what competitive, albeit to greatly varying degrees.
“LIKELY” SEATS
Caithness, Sutherland & Ross
With a 12 point majority, this ought to be a fairly easy hold for the SNP. However, Gail Ross is stepping down and handing the seat over to Maree Todd, which may erase some personal/incumbency vote. Although on fairly different boundaries, the coterminous Westminster seat is (extremely narrowly) held by the Lib Dems, and they offer an attractive option for unionist tactical voting in this seat.
Perthshire South & Kinross-shire
On paper this ought to be a top Tory target - the SNP is defending a margin of just 4 points. However, this area swung drastically back to the SNP in 2019, and is anchored by almost all of the city of Perth, meaning that this ought to be a Fairlie comfortable hold.
Angus North & Mearns
Mairi Gougeon is defending a majority of 8 points, and this seat would have almost certainly gone Tory in 2017. However, the 2019 General Election saw the entirety of Angus swing back to the SNP on a large margin, and I expect that pattern to hold in this seat.
Edinburgh Central
A candidate as high profile as Angus Robertson? Check. A popular Tory incumbent stepping down? Check. The perfect demographic hotbed for the new wave of middle class remainer Sturgeonphiles? Check. If the SNP don’t carry Edinburgh Central by a convincing margin - it is likely having a pretty bad night. If the SNP doesn’t carry the seat at all? A horrendous one.
Aberdeen South & North Kincardine
The SNP held this seat fairly comfortably in 2016, lost it in 2017 at Westminster and then regained it back in 2019 with an even higher voteshare than the last time it held the seat. The Tories are on the back foot in this suburban, strongly Europhile constituency.
Eastwood
The SNP hold the coterminous Westminster constituency of East Renfrewshire with a margin of 10 points and 5,426 votes (albeit without the SNP-friendly Barrhead in the Holyrood seat). It is possible that Jackson Carlaw holds on to some personal support. However, Sarwar is the kind of Scottish Labour candidate who can probably stem most of the Lab-Con bleeding in that seat, but not the equally sizeable Lab-SNP bleeding. Given the demographics and profile of the seat, I’d be very surprised if the SNP didn’t win this.
Glasgow Kelvin
The Green party is on track to nearly double its share of the list vote, but is still languishing at the bottom of constituency support - that is, when it even registers in polls. However, given the growing popularity of Patrick Harvie’s party and his own profile, it’s not unimaginable to see him possibly overturning the SNP’s 4,000 vote majority in this seat - especially with the incumbent Sandra White standing down. In her stead is Kaukab Stewart, who would be Holyrood’s very first ever woman of colour in the Scottish parliament if elected. Ultimately, she’s likely to win this seat because of the SNP’s own constituency vote sailing high and a large number of students (the most important Green-leaning voting bloc in the seat) being out of their campuses due to the pandemic.
Dumfriesshire
The SNP narrowly missed out on this three-way marginal seat in 2016. Since then however, anti-SNP tactical voting in this area has become far more efficient. The SNP’s own support in the area has grown too - David Mundell’s majority in the overlapping Westminster constituency was greatly reduced. However, representing this area is a family business for the Mundells, and I strongly expect much of Elaine Murray’s residual personal vote from 2016 to break in Oliver Mundell’s favour over Joan McAlpine’s.
Edinburgh Western
The Liberal Democrats may be slightly down on their 2016 vote, but it will likely become more efficiently distributed too, especially in seats that they’ve won previously. As a result, I expect Alex Cole-Hamilton to hold this seat fairly comfortably. Much less comfortably than the other three Lib Dem strongholds, however, thanks to Edinburgh’s overall partisan trend towards the SNP.
Edinburgh Southern
This seat went hard against both the nationwide and Edinburgh-wide trend in 2016 when it swung from the SNP to Labour, despite the party’s retreat in most other areas. This trend accelerated massively with Ian Murray’s landslide victory in the coterminous Westminster seat in 2017 and again in 2019. For that reason, I think Daniel Johnson is likely to hold the seat. That isn’t “safe” by any means, though - on paper, the seat is extremely marginal. Boundary differences mean that parts of Murray’s heartland (Gilmerton, Burdiehouse) are in neighbouring Edinburgh Eastern, while parts of Joanna Cherry’s (Fountainbridge, Craiglockhart) and Tommy Sheppard’s (Portobello, Craigmillar) yellow fortresses are included in this seat. The right set of circumstances (a higher number of Greens lending their vote, the Tory and Lib Dem voteshares holding steady, Catriona MacDonald’s growing profile in the area since 2019) could just about conceivably see it flip yellow, if combined with a fortuitious national environment.
“LEAN” SEATS
Those are seats which are likely to go to the aforementioned parties in tomorrow’s elections, but which I wouldn’t be surprised to see possible upsets in. The following seats, however, are genuine battlegrounds where the main question at the heart of this election - whether the SNP win a majority or not - will be answered.
Galloway & West Dumfries
At the Westminster level, the SNP reduced Scottish Secretary Alister Jack’s majority from nearly 6000 to just 1800 votes in 2019, and the seat has some history voting for the SNP in previous elections. Although I expect it to stay blue, it is by some distance the Border seat I rate the SNP’s chances most highly in.
Moray
Richard Lochhead has represented this seat for 15 years, and although the national environment has trended away from the Tories and towards the SNP, I would still expect regional realignments to make this seat - overlapping with Scotland’s highest Leave-voting authority - more competitive in reality than it is on paper.
Banffshire & Buchan Coast
On paper, this is a seat that the SNP ought to win by a crushing margin. In reality, it voted for Brexit by over 60% and has now gone Tory at two general elections in a row. That said, the national environment has become more favourable for the SNP since 2019 and fishing-related woes may also have localised effects on the way coastal communities in this seat vote. Karen Adam ought to win this seat - but she will do so with a far, far narrower margin than Stewart Stevenson or Alex Salmond ever did.
Aberdeenshire East
Gillian Martin has a majority of 17 points - surely she’ll sail to re-election without any problems, right? Nope. Her constituency overlaps with quite a few WM seats but most of all, Alex Salmond’s old haunt of Gordon - a seat which saw the Tories actually increase their vote from 2017 to 2019, which the SNP only narrowly cinched back because of Labour collapse. Her seat is like that, but with some of the most SNP-friendly territory in the north of Aberdeen city (Danestone, Bridge of Don, Dyce) stripped out, and hostile territory from neigbouring Banff & Buchan (Turriff, Mintlaw, Cruden Bay) thrown in. The seat’s largest portion of votes will come from Inverurie, Oldmeldrum and Ellon. It’s almost gerrymandered for the SNP to lose, but she ought to be saved by a favourable national environment, and Tories not running serious constituency campaigns, focusing on saving their list candidates instead.
Dumbarton
This is the most marginal battleground in the country, and one which the SNP ought to take fairly easily on paper - but Jackie Baillie’s formidable personal vote and Tory tactical support from the western half of the seat - especially around Helensburgh - will be pivotal. Ultimately, the strongly SNP, densely populated and Yes-voting Vale of Leven (Dumbarton, Alexandria, Balloch etc.) ought to override the more conservative Argyll-adjacent regions, but it will be close.
East Lothian
This seat will also be pivotal to the SNP’s hopes of a majority, having gone to the SNP by 7 points at the last General Election. Its residual Labour vote is much stronger than in other parts of Lothian, but incumbent Ian Gray is stepping down and the national environment in this narrow battleground means that the SNP’s Paul McLennan ought to win it by a decent but narrow margin, unless the substantial 3rd place Tory vote goes tactically to Martin Whitfield.
Aberdeenshire West
This seat overlaps a few WM constituencies but none moreso than West Aberdeenshire & Kincardine, which saw Fergus Mutch slash the incumbent Tory Andrew Bowie’s majority in the seat from nearly 8000 votes to just over 800. He’s going to be giving it a go again, this time against Alexander Burnett’s far narrower majority of 900 votes. What slightly complicates things is the boundary differences - some SNP-friendly territory in Portlethen, Newtonhill and Stonehaven is removed, and the more Tory-leaning area of Huntly is added. For Mutch to triumph, he will need the larger Aberdeen satellites of Westhill and Blackburn to come in strong for the SNP, and to stay competitive in further-out commuter towns like Alford, Kintore, Kemnay and Insch, while holding down Tory margins coming from the Royal Deeside (Banchory, Aboyne, Ballater, Braemar etc.) and further north from Huntly. There’s also a sizeable Lib Dem vote from last time, which will be pivotal to deciding which party wins this seat. As things stand, I consider the SNP to be the narrow favourites.
Ayr
Ayr’s partisanship has stubbornly stood still between 2016 and 2019, but the national swing to the SNP ought to put this just over the top for the party. There’s a sizeable Labour 3rd party vote here, and in most Con-SNP battleground seats I expect that to break in the SNP’s favour - but that doesn’t quite apply the same way in the South of Scotland. However, I expect it to still shift just enough for the SNP to win.
OUTSIDER CHANCES FOR UPSETS
There are a further five seats which at one point I considered putting in the “likely” column for the SNP, but which upon further inspection have decided to leave at “safe” - those are Angus South, Perthshire North, Edinburgh Pentland, Rutherglen and Cowdenbeath. Graeme Dey’s Angus South constituency is anchored by enough of Dundee’s outskirts and Arbroath to make the seat noncompetitive. Perthshire North swung dramatically to the Tories in 2016, but they failed to unseat Pete Wishart in 2017 despite a blue wave, and got blown out of the water in 2019, meaning there’s no reason to view Murdo Fraser’s 7th bid for this seat to be any more lucky than his previous failed 6. Similarly, Edinburgh Pentland actually swung slightly -to- the SNP in 2016, and the Tories failed to take it in 2017 despite the blue wave, and got blown out of the area in 2019. Rutherglen is fairly competitive at the Westminster level, but at Holyrood its SNP MSP is much more secure. James Kelly is one of Labour’s more high profile candidates and has history in the seat, but there’s little reason to believe he has much chance of overturning Clare Haughey’s 11 point majority given the national environment. Pretty much everything said above also applies to Alex Rowley’s hopes of overturning Annabelle Ewing’s 10 point majority in Cowdenbeath.
LIST PREDICTIONS
I really don’t have the courage, effort or smarts needed to make accurate projections of how the D’Hondt allocated list seats will play out. I have a few intelligent guesses backed by general vibes, though.
Alex Salmond is getting elected in the Northeast, probably dead last - and it’ll be between himself and Maggie Chapman.
There won’t be any Lib Dem list MSPs from any region, except maybe the Northeast.
The SNP is probably winning one list seat in the Highlands & Islands.
IF there’s any kind of Alba breakthrough, it will likely come from the the Northeast (obviously), the West of Scotland and Central Scotland. The pro-indy list vote will be too fragmented for them to break through in the Highlands & Islands region, and the party is unlikely to find much support from either Glasgow or Lothians.
Paul Wheelhouse is not returning to parliament - both the 3rd SNP South list seat, and his chosen battleground of Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire are almost certainly unwinnable.
Joan McAlpine is on the ropes - the SNP’s second South list seat will be difficult to hold, if the party gains Ayr and East Lothian. Given my relative certainty that she will lose Dumfriesshire, it doesn’t look great for her.
George Galloway will not get elected, nor will anybody else from A4U. If he gets 2%-3% in the South however, it could possibly become an irritant for the major unionist parties relying on list seats there.
Andy Wightman is *probably* not getting elected, but he stands a far better chance than any others.
The Abolish the Scottish Parliament Party, blessed with space right at the top of the ballot and an eye-catching logo, will perform better than most other fringe unionist outfits, to the point where it could even become a headache for the Tories.
The Greens are likely to underperform their national vote in the Northeast and South, and outperform it in Lothians and Glasgow.
NE Fife is not safe for the Libdems. Much of its majority came from tactical Tory students at St. Andrews Uni, who are still in England at the moment. There is also a significant number of students in the constituency voting at home who would have been voting in Edinburgh and Glasgow probably SNP who will now be voting SNP. The increase in postal voting which has hitherto favoured Lib Dems is now more inter generational and again should close the gap. I think this is a knife edge seat. Paradoxically the absence of student voters may lose the SNP central Edinburgh and Edinburgh South. I expect there to be no universality in swing at all from 2016. Rural seats will have a higher SNP vote than such a swing would suggest, and may see the two Dumfriessshire seats shift to SNP as well as NE Fife whereas the three non SNP Edinburgh seats may well be just out of reach.