New poll reveals Kate Forbes is the big favourite of SNP voters to succeed Nicola SturgeonA new poll related to the SNP leadership election is out. Crucially it has fieldwork dates from after the witch-hunt against Kate Forbes got underway, although there's a caveat on that - the poll opened on Monday, and if memory serves me right the witch-hunt didn't get properly underway until Monday evening. So much depends on what percentage of responses were received by then. It's also a poll of SNP voters only.
Preferred SNP leader, SNP voters only (Opinion Matters / BIG Partnership, 20th-22nd February 2023)
Kate Forbes 28%
Humza Yousaf 20%
Ash Regan 7%
Someone told me last night that the news programme on the BBC Scotland channel was talking up a poll that was coming out with some major surprises. Does anyone know if this is the one they were talking about, or if there's another one I've overlooked? If it's this one, I'm not really sure what the surprise is, because Kate Forbes has been ahead in all the previous polls and she's ahead in this one. Or is the surprise supposed to be Humza not being in last place? That's not a genuine change, because earlier polls have had a different format, with net ratings that subtract the number of people who don't like him from the number of people who do. The new numbers only show the percentages who positively prefer each candidate, which leaves Mr Yousaf with an in-built advantage over Ash Regan because he's better known than she is.
Remember, though, that even this poll is not sampling the actual electorate in the leadership election, which will be composed only of SNP members, and not mere voters or supporters. That's the reason for fearing Mr Yousaf is being underestimated by the polling evidence so far, because many SNP members are reflexively loyal to the current leadership, which is clearly behind Mr Yousaf as the continuity candidate. And although The National haven't as far as I know given an explicit endorsement to Mr Yousaf, they also haven't been particularly subtle about their attempts to undermine Ms Forbes' campaign, which is arguably tantamount to support for Mr Yousaf.
I've been trying to work out the likely psychological effect of the very silly story in the Record about how some SNP MSPs will refuse to help install Ms Forbes as First Minister if she wins the leadership election. This is clearly part of a 'shock and awe' campaign to intimidate members into thinking they have no choice but to vote for Mr Yousaf - but could it backfire? Could SNP members resent being blackmailed, and resent even more the implication that there are MSPs who would be so appallingly disloyal to their party and to the independence cause? I suppose we're about to find out whether SNP members will just obediently go along with absolutely anything that is chucked at them, or whether they have minds of their own.
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Source: New poll reveals Kate Forbes is the big favourite of SNP voters to succeed Nicola Sturgeon (//)