Holyrood 2026 election: Half of tactical votes will be anti-SNP
However, experts say the arrival of Reform UK is changing how Scottish voters use tactical votes.
Over half of tactical votes cast at the upcoming Holyrood election will be against the SNP, according to a polling expert.
However, the arrival of Reform UK in Scottish politics is breaking down the traditional constitutional divide when it comes to tactical voting.
Professor Ailsa Henderson from the Scottish Election Study said around a fifth of tactical voting on May 7 will also be anti-Reform.
Speaking to BBC The Sunday Show, she said: “We know tactical voting has increased in every election since 1999, and in 2021 it was 20 per cent.
“The Scottish Election Study asked voters this question in February, and 15 per cent said they would be casting a tactical ballot.
“We also know that most tactical voting is anti-SNP. Over 83 per cent of tactical votes in 2021 were anti-SNP.
“It does look like that will remain the bulk of tactical voting with over half being anti-SNP, but a fifth say they will cast a tactical ballot against Reform.”
Professor Henderson said most tactical voting tends to happen within “constitutional blocs”, but the arrival of Reform UK is causing this to “breakdown”.
She added: “One thing we know about tactical voting is that it happens within constitutional blocs - pro-independence voters will cast a vote for another pro-independence party, and pro-union voters are shuffling across pro-union parties to cast their ballot.
“We know that in 2024 the result was that the Scottish electorate arranged itself into a series of extreme two-party contests, where in more than half of the constituencies the third placed party had less than 10 per cent of the vote.
“The electorate reduced the non-competitive parties to single digit support to put support behind the party best placed to defeat the SNP.
“We know Reform could fundamentally change that within constitutional bloc tactical voting.
“Norstat has some really interesting polling where they offered people a series of two-party contests and said it was a fight between two parties, and we saw that when it was a contest between the SNP and Reform UK, ⅔ of Labour voters and ¾ of Lib Dem voters would rather go to the SNP than Reform.
“So the arrival of Reform is causing a breakdown of the constitutional bloc tactical voting, so there is a very different picture from 2021.”
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