Ipsos MORI followed up their #indyref voting intentions poll with their latest Scottish Public Opinion Monitor.
Asking voters how they’d vote in the next Scottish Parliamentary election, the vote was broken down like this (the latest SPOM was in February):
SNP – 39% (+1)
Labour – 30% (+1)
Conservatives – 14% (-3)
Liberal Democrats – 5% (-4)
Greens – 5% (+3)
UKIP – 4% (+1)
The key points to take away from this report is:
- SNP support continues to hold up, despite seven years in Government. This is an incredibly unusual phenomena
- The Lib Dems are at their lowest level that Ipsos MORI have ever recorded, leaving them vying with the Greens are Scotland’s fourth party
- The polling took place in the week after the European Elections result, therefore Conservative and UKIP support may be unsettled. This will be an interesting trend to watch in coming months
- We are still 100 weeks away from the Scottish Parliamentary election. There is still the independence referendum and 2015 General Election which we predict will have implications ahead of May 2016.
Party Leaders
Another aspect of Ipsos MORI’s polling was approval rating of party leaders. This is how satisfied Scottish voters are with their leaders:
Alex Salmond (49%)
Johann Lamont (38%)
Patrick Harvie (35%)
Ruth Davidson (32%)
Willie Rennie (20%)
And there was an independence referendum dimension to the leader approval ratings too.
51% of voters are satisfied with Nicola Sturgeon, with 34% feeling the same about Alistair Darling. 50% of voters were dissatisfied with the former Chancellor and Better Together leader, whilst the Deputy First Minister scored a 38% dissatisfied rating.
To see the full results for yourself, visit Ipsos MORI’s website here: http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3390/Support-for-Scottish-Lib-Dems-falls-to-lowest-level.aspx