UK-Elect Scottish Parliament Forecast, March 17th 2015.

SNP forecast to lose control of Scottish Parliament, short by 4

This is the latest UK-Elect forecast for the 2016 Scottish Pariament Election, created on March 17th 2015. It shows the SNP narrowly losing control of the Scottish Parliament despite further predicted constituency gains from Labour, due to losses to UKIP and the Greens in the Additional Member part of the Scottish Parliament.

Further forecasts will be made at frequent intervals before the next Scottish Parliament Election. Other recent forecasts include the Welsh Assembly Forecast (March 20th 2015) and the UK General Election Forecast (March 13th 2015).

The percentages input for this forecast were constituency Vote: SNP 47% Lab 27%, Con 14%, Lib Dem 4%, UKIP 4%, Green 3%. Regional member vote: SNP 39%, Lab 23%, Con 14% Lib Dem 5% UKIP 9%, Green 9%. Other parties votes were not specifically set.

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Party Seats Change SNP 61 -7 Labour 31 -7 Conservative 16 +1 Liberal Democrat 4 -1 Green 9 +7 UKIP 8 +8 Ind 0 -1 Scottish National Party - Short by 4 Party AMS Change Labour 22 - Conservative 13 +1 Green 9 +7 UKIP 8 +8 SNP 2 -14 Liberal Democrat 2 -1 Independent 0 -1 Additional Member Seats - UKIP Gain 8, Green 7. SNP lose 14.

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Notes: The forecast base was the 2011 Scottish Parliament Election, although gains are compared to the current situation. The UK-Elect v9.3 method was used (UK-Elect supports many different alternatives, including "classic" methods such as Uniform National Swing, Proportional, and Proportional Loss, with or without a threshold). The forecast was (of course) made using the Additional Member System used in the Scottish Parliament elections. Tactical voting and additional incumbency support were disabled (as the UK-Elect v9.3 method already includes some built-in support for incumbent candidates). The 'Adjust Target Percentages For Election Date' option was enabled, meaning that the assumption was made that party vote support would return part-way towards the level at the previous election, therefore the final percentages used for the constituencies vote were SNP 46.3% Lab 27.6% Con 13.7% Lib Dem 4.7 UKIP 3 Green 2.8%.

Additional Note:Because of the scarcity of recent Scottish Parliament polling data (while the focus is on the UK General Election) the confidence level in this forecast should be regarded as somewhat lower than normal, although the general situation forecast - with the SNP close to retaining a majority - seems plausible.