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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

🆕 A rapid response blog on Scots' views about the mandate for an independence referendum and the political realities facing the SNP from @ailsahenderson.bsky.social scottishelections.ac.uk/2026/05/28/d...

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

🚨 SES Annual Lecture 2026 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @richardwynjones.bsky.social 🥀 The Decline and Fall of Welsh Labour 🕗 6PM, 23rd of May 📍 Usha Kasera Lecture Theatre, University of Edinburgh Sign up edin.ac/4mHfPKZ

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Highlights 🔦 - Folk are quite pessimistic about the state of the country - The SNP's core support base is losing faith - But the party's continued dominance of that camp is boosting their chances - Independence attitudes remain strongly polarised by age cohort

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

🚨🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 FINAL SCOOP POLL BEFORE MAY IS OUT Crosstabs here: scottishelections.ac.uk/wp-content/u... Trends since 2021 with our final numbers 👇🏻 More on our Public Opinion Dashboard: scottishelections.ac.uk/dashboard/

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Finally, while the salience of independence continues to fall, #indyref2 views remain closely divided and seemingly won't budge 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿⚖️🇬🇧 Opinions are incredibly polarised across age groups, and the working-age population aren't turning against it even with a @teamlabouruk.bsky.social govt. in London 👀

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Vote intention is stabilising ahead of 2026 🗳️ @reformukscotland.bsky.social's rapid increase has plateaued and @snp.org remain on ~30% 🤷🏻 But @scottishlabour.bsky.social need to close the gap again if they hope to make @anassarwar.bsky.social FM 🌹 @scottories.bsky.social struggles persist 🤒

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

On issues, the constitutional question has substantially declined in relevance in the last couple of years 🪧 Scots remain overwhelmingly preoccupied with the state of the economy, the health service, education and increasingly immigration and housing 🏗️

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Government performance evaluations are similar. First Minister @johnswinney.bsky.social seems to have arrested but not reversed the decline 🫷🏻 Meanwhile, views of the newish @10dowingstreet.bsky.social have only improved marginally over its predecessor 🚪

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Scots have become significantly more pessimistic about the country's direction since covid, but attitudes seem to have stabilised over the past year 🥱

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

🍦Big Scoop tracker update 📊 We've fully updated our handy page of time series public opinion measures, added new visualisations and made it much easier to find. And we've renamed it the SES Opinion Dashboard 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🧑🏽‍🤝‍🧑🏻 Summary 🧵 scottishelections.ac.uk/dashboard/

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Our postdoc @eoghanly.bsky.social has co-developed @devolvedelections.bsky.social, a seat projection tool for devolved elections 🤓🧮 You can select from some preset scenarios or plug in your own vote share numbers to generate precise estimates. More info ⬇️ scottishelections.ac.uk/2025/05/22/a...

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Our annual SES Bonanza Week kicks off this Thursday with The Stevenson Trust for Citizenship at @uofglasgow.bsky.social ! Join us for our take on next year's Scottish Parliament election 🤠🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 ⏰ 1800-1930 📍 203 Boyd Orr Building, Glasgow Sign up 👇🏼 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/one-year-o...

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

@ailsahenderson.bsky.social and @frasmcm.bsky.social were delighted to receive the 2025 @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social Pippa Norris Prize on behalf of the whole SES team for a research group's "outstanding contribution to advancing knowledge in Political Studies" earlier this week at #PSA25 🥳

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

We find that Reform are, unsurprisingly, attracting anti-immigration and anti-establishment voters in Scotland. They pose a big threat to the @scottories.bsky.social but could be held back by a limited pool of prospective voters and Farage's personal ratings.

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

⏰ CALL FOR PAPERS Scottish politics conference co-organised by the SES, @ccc-research.bsky.social and hosted at @edinburghpir.bsky.social 12-13 May 2025 We look forward to welcoming researchers working on anything and everything related to Scottish politics a year out from the 2026 election 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🗳️

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

We'll be at @scottishlabour.bsky.social conf next Friday 21st at 1730 for our Fringe with @michaeljmarra.bsky.social and @libbybrooks.bsky.social 🌹📰 @ailsahenderson.bsky.social @cjcarman.bsky.social and Fraser McMillan will discuss GE2024 findings and look ahead to 2026 - tea and shorties included!

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

After a very busy year in Scottish politics, we hope everyone has a lovely break 🎄🎅🏻

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

We've published an interactive visualisation of vote flows in the last two general elections so if you're interested in e.g. > the Labour win > how the SNP lost out > where Reform support came from you'll find this interesting to play around with 🤓 public.flourish.studio/visualisatio...

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

Support at independence hasn't shifted and is stuck at or around the 45% achieved 10 years ago. But the perception that the SNP are doing a bad job in government is now hurting the party.

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

Well, even though a majority of the electorate have consistently indicated they would never consider voting Conservative, the share for the SNP has grown considerably, and by far the majority of tactical votes cast are now against the nationalists.

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

It is also the case that tactical voting has increased, and this mostly disadvantages the SNP. Why?

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

The long and short of all this is that elevated indy support sustained the SNP long after 2014, powering them to a series of victories at all levels of government. But in the last couple of years their grip on pro-indy voters has loosened significantly.

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

We also know it changed people's constitutional preferences, with young people in particular much more supportive than before - although they were always the group most favourably disposed to "devo max". The binary choice presented in 2014 forced people to pick a side.

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

It similarly altered how people felt about Scotland, believing it had become a more engaged political space. Yes voters were initially more convinced of this, but No voters soon changed their minds. This shows the % of voters saying the indyref made Scotland more involved ✍️

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

We also know that the referendum changed how people engaged with politics. A lot of people joined the pro-indy parties after the referendum. At peak, one in 24 Scots belonged to a political party vs one in 125 in the UK as a whole 🪧⬇️

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

Meanwhile, changes in Conservative support were more gradual. This graph shows the share of Labour voters switching to the Conservatives at each general election in the 2010s, with the party's effort to become the voice of No supporters paying off north of the border in 2017 🔵

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

The referendum pushed voters out to the poles of the constitutional debate. This outstanding graph by @jaclarner.bsky.social shows this happened immediately following the indyref vote, with voters moving from Labour to SNP en masse 😯

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

We also saw greater consistency between Westminster and Holyrood preferences, moving away from patterns early on in the devolution era. This graph shows differences in parties' constituency vote shares at Westminster and Holyrood elections.

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

We know the referendum changed voting behaviour with... Firstly, greater consistency between independence preferences and party preferences 🗳️🤝 2010 > 2015 general election vote choice among Yes voters on the left, No voters on the right.

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Scottish Election Study @scotvoting.bsky.social · 20/09/2024

To mark ten years since the independence referendum we're collating some nice SES data and launching our account Over Here! Hello Bluesky 🦋 Did the indyref change Scotland? As you might expect from the title of our book based on SES and Scottish Referendum Study data, the answer is yes! But how?

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