Dramatic boost for Kate Forbes as first poll of SNP members suggests she will become First Minister if she receives the lion's share of Ash Regan's second preferencesThanks to Keaton for pointing out to me that the first 'proper' poll of the SNP leadership election has been published - ie. a poll of SNP members who actually have a vote, as opposed to the polls we've previously seen of the general public or of SNP voters, most of whom don't have a vote. It turns out, as we feared, that SNP members are pulling in a different direction from the party's voters and the wider public, and that Humza Yousaf has a lead on first preferences. However, the good news is that the lead is small enough that there is a clear path to victory for Kate Forbes once second preferences are taken into account, which arguably means she should now be considered the slight favourite.
SNP members' first preferences for leader (Savanta ComRes / Daily Telegraph, 23rd February - 1st March 2023):
Humza Yousaf: 31%
Kate Forbes: 25%
Ash Regan: 11%
So there are two questions here: firstly, will the 32% of undecideds break in roughly the same way as those who already have a view, and secondly, how strongly will Ash Regan's voters break for Forbes on second preferences? There's no doubt in my mind at all that the majority of Regan voters will go for Forbes over Yousaf, but on these figures they would need to break roughly 9-2 to put Forbes 34-33 in the lead (or the proportionate equivalent of that) on the final count. That would normally be a tall order, but it's very hard to see why all that many Regan voters would prefer Yousaf to Forbes - he supports the GRR Bill and he's by far the most tepid and 'do nothing' of the three candidates on independence strategy, which puts him at the opposite end of the spectrum from Regan. Still, voters do odd things in preferential elections, and some people fail to rank more than one candidate.
It's now vital that Regan's most prominent backers (such as, let's face it, a certain gentleman in Somerset) stress the importance of using a second preference for Forbes as a back-up. Stuart does have an 'everything or nothing at all' streak to his personality, which led him at one point to urge Kate Forbes not to even stand and thus allow a straight fight between Yousaf and Regan (an outcome that would almost certainly have handed Yousaf the leadership on a plate). If he doesn't want to blow a golden opportunity to stop Yousaf, it would be wise of him to clearly hammer home that this is a preferential voting system and that Forbes is obviously preferable to Yousaf.
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Source: Dramatic boost for Kate Forbes as first poll of SNP members suggests she will become First Minister if she receives the lion's share of Ash Regan's second preferences (//)