Ipsos MORI published polling for the SNP and independence back in early December. Most recently it has published a new set of figures a few days back, which show the party taking a modest step back after the Holyrood inquiry, and the Yes/No gap significantly narrowing, albeit one where Yes is still undeniably in the lead.
When it comes to Holyrood headline voting intention, SCon and SLab are statistically unchanged at 23% and 15% respectively, while the SNP is slightly down from 55% to 52%, and the Greens are slightly up from 1% to 3%. The SNP’s slight dip is even among both men and women voters, nonexistent among under-35s and over-55s, and somewhat pronounced among the 35-54 cohort. It has fallen a single point among ABC1 voters, and three points with C2DE voters. Quite importantly - this is all with a very, very low percentage of undecided voters, meaning that barring some US 2020 style major polling error, the level of fluctuation and electoral volatility between now and May ought to be quite small. As for voting enthusiasm - there doesn’t seem to be any statistically significant change in the number of people “certain” to vote in this year’s election.
However, there’s a much more marked shift in polling around independence. A few months back, they had Yes at 51% and No at 41%, with a further 8% undecided. Now, the polling shows 47% for Yes, 43% for No and 9% undecided. Yes has dropped just 2 points among men from 52% to 50% - but it has plummeted 6 points among women, from 50% to 44%. Support for the union has only risen 1 point for men, from 41% to 42%, but among women has climbed 4 points, tying level with independence at 44%. Among age cohorts, Yes has fallen 10 points among under-35s from 68% to 58%, while support for the Union is static among this age group, at 28% - there is a sharp rise in undecideds, up from 5% to 12%. In the 35-54 age cohort, Yes falls 4 points from 53% to 49% while support for the Union has climbed 3 points from 38% to 41%, and undecideds are static at 8%. Among voters aged 55 and over, support for independence is static, falling just one point from 37% to 36%. However, there is a sharp increase in support for the Union, up from 52% to 57%, while undecideds shrink from 10% to 6%. And as far as social class is concerned, support for Yes stays the same at 52% for C2DE voters, while support for the Union ticks up from 37% to 40% among the group, at the expense of undecideds. However, the story is the opposite in the ABC1 cohort, which sees support for Yes plummet from 50% to 44%, support for the Union grow from 44 to 46% and undecideds grow from 6% to 9%.
At the partisan level, not very much of interest is happening. But (if crosstabs are anything to go by, and they may not always be) as far as independence is concerned, the narrowing appears to be the product of undecided older voters coming “home” to No, and younger Yes voters drifting into the undecided column at a roughly commensurate pace. As far as the relevance of Salmondgate to this trend is concerned it is possible that news of great vaccine success at the UK level combined with the months-long media circus around the Holyrood Inquiry has led to some older Unionists temporarily displeased with the UK Government rallying back to No. The question of why there are shifts away from Yes amongst ABC1 voters and women merits some serious thought, and I don’t think any of us can really answer it straight away.