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IT has been relatively quiet on the polling front now that the Holyrood 2026 election has come to pass, but a fresh survey from YouGov has given us some insight into how Scottish voters cast their ballots.
The polling firm put out the figures from a survey of 3882 adults in Scotland over the age of 16, broken down by gender, age, education level and how they voted in the 2014 independence referendum and 2016 Brexit referendum.
Here are some of the things that we learned.
Scottish Greens' biggest voter block is young people
This is not a complete surprise, but within the 16-29 age group, the Greens have the highest support compared to any other party with 36% – a significantly large proportion of the vote.
The SNP are in second place with 19%, Labour in third with 16%, the LibDems next on 11%, Reform on 9% and the Tories on 6%.
The SNP do better in the 30-39 age group, with 33%, with the Greens in second place on 19%. Labour are again at 16%, Reform on 12%, the Tories on 8%, LibDems 7%, and 5% for others.
The SNP also lead in the age groups for 40-49, 50-59, 60-69 and 70+.
But it is notable that in the older age groups, support among Reform UK is highest from those in the 50-59 and 60-69 age group, sitting at 21%.
The Tories' highest percentage, where they are ahead of Reform in one instance, is the 70+ cohort, where they are at 20%.
Labour are at a flat 16% across all age groups.
Women prefer SNP over Greens
How voters based on gender is always quite interesting, and this YouGov poll suggests that amongst women voting for pro-independence parties, they tend to favour the SNP.
It suggests 29% of female voters backed the SNP, compared to 13% for the Scottish Greens.
When it comes to male voters, 25% backed the SNP while 15% supported the Greens.
More men voted for Reform, 19%, compared to women, 14%.
While more women backed the Tories, 13%, than men, 11%. Labour also saw more male voters backing them 17%, to women, 15%, while the LibDems also did better amongst women, 12%, than men, 7%.
Overall, women were more likely to vote for independence parties if you combine the SNP and Greens, 42%, than men, 40%.
And, men and women voted 54% for Unionist parties – Labour, the LibDems, Tories and Reform combined.
Does education have an impact?
Another interesting point is the education level of voters and which party they voted for. Among those with what is branded as a “high” level of education, the SNP comes out on top with 26% of the vote, followed by the Scottish Greens on 19%, and Labour on 18%. Reform sits at 11%, while the LibDems and Tories both have 10%.
For a medium education level, we start to see a slight change, while the SNP still sits at 26%, support for Reform and the Tories grows, to 17% and 14% respectively. The Tories also see a four point boost, to 14%.
Support for Scottish Labour drops three points to 15%, by five points to 14% for the Scottish Greens, and by one point for the LibDems.
But for those with a “low” education level, the big winners are the SNP, on 31%, and Reform on 25%. The Scottish Greens support plummets to 6%, the Tories also revert back to 10%, Labour drops to 14%, and the LibDems down to 8%.
Referenda
How voters who backed independence voted in the Holyrood 2026 election is also incredibly interesting. It’s no surprise that 47% of those voted for the SNP, or that 15% of Yes voters backed the Greens, but 13% also cast their ballot for Reform UK. Noticeably, the long-term Unionist parties had a much smaller share of the vote here, with Labour getting only 8% of support from Yes voters, while Reform picked up 13% of votes from those who backed independence in 2014.
Scottish Labour MP Brian Leishman admitted off the back of the polling, on X/Twitter: “What was once a large chunk of our core vote has gone to the SNP. Scottish Labour must go back to our original values.” He argued that Scottish Labour lost the election as “people do not know what we stand for and who we stand for”.
But 11% of No voters also backed the SNP, with Labour getting the highest share of the Unionist vote, 24%, followed by Reform, 23%, and the Tories, 22%.
When it comes to the Brexit referendum, Reform, unsurprisingly, had the highest level of support from voters who voted to leave the European Union, 40%, while the SNP had the highest number for voters who wanted to remain, 32%, while the Scottish Greens picked up 14%.
Constituency vs regional vote
The most interesting part of the breakdown of voters comparing who they voted for at the constituency and regional level, which shows that some voters who backed Labour in the constituency, backed the Scottish Greens on the regional list, while other Labour voters seem to have given their list vote to Reform, the Tories and LibDems, highlighting a splintering vote amongst the previously dominant Unionist parties. Some Tories voters also appear to have given their regional list vote to Labour.
There is evidently a lot more movement between the legacy Unionist parties – Labour, Tories and LibDem – which appears to show that voters are quite happy to move from one to the other, and that none inspires quite as much loyalty as they would like.
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