Scottish Election Analysis 2026:
The Campaign, Voters and Policies
Featuring more than 50 contributions, this publication captures the immediate thoughts, reflections and early research insights on the 2026 Scottish Parliament election from leading scholars in Scottish politics, elections, media and policy.
Published 10 days after the election, contributions are short and accessible for a wide range of audiences. As with our previous reports, authors provide authoritative analysis of the campaign, including research findings or new theoretical insights, to bring readers original ways of understanding the election and what might happen next.
We hope this makes for a vibrant, informative and engaging read.
Editorial team:
Professor Ana Ines Langer, Professor Christopher Carman, Professor Ariadne Vromen and Dr Maia Almeida-Amir
The Election Analysis series is published by the Centre for Comparative Politics & Media Research at Bournemouth University.
The 2026 report was prepared in collaboration with:
The School of Social & Political Sciences, University of Glasgow
https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical
Political Studies Association
The Stevenson Trust for Citizenship, University of Glasgow
https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/research/stevensontrust
The Scottish Political Communication Network
https://scotpolcomm.gla.ac.uk/
Contents
Section 1: Parties and the campaign
- How SNP and Swinney stopped the rot (Eddie Barnes)
- The Scottish green wave breaks at last (Dr Jonathan Parker)
- What went wrong for Labour (Prof Kezia Dugdale)
- The Scottish Conservatives (Dr Alan Convery)
- Reform’s courting of Scotland’s post-industrial communities (Dr Maike Dinger and Prof Darren Lilleker)
- From chatbots to the ballotbox – how voters used AI to learn about the Scottish Parliament election (Dr Louise Luxton, Dr Timea Balogh, Elise Frelin & Prof Zoe Greene)
- Online advertising in the Scottish Parliament election (Kate Dimson and Prof Cristian Vaccari)
- Boring is not a virtue: Lessons from Scottish parties’ campaigns on TikTok (Prof Ana Ines Langer, Dr Lluis de Nadal)
- When parties travel, does negativity follow? Comparing campaigns on X (Dr Aybuke Atalay, Dr Ricardo Ribeiro Ferreira)
- Minding the distance: leaders in the election manifestos (Dr Michael Higgins, Prof Angela Smith)
- “It’s the Crisis, Stupid!” – Permacrisis and the 2026 Scottish Parliament election (Dr Paul Anderson, Dr Coree Brown Swan, Dr Judith Sijstermans
- ‘Whither Scottish national identity? The Reform UK challenge to an inclusive Scotland’ (Dr Murray Leith, Dr Duncan Sim)
- Environmental politics: flooded off the agenda? (Dr Kristen Nicolson)
- A disappearing crisis? Climate debate in the 2026 Scottish election campaign (Dr William Dinan)
- The Curious Case of the Co-operative Party and Lessons for Labour (Katharine McCrossan)
News, media and journalism
- News consumption in Scotland (Dr Camila Montalverne)
- TikTok’s For You Page recommendations during the Scottish Parliament election (Dr Dayei Oh, Dr Chamil Rathnayake)
- From participation to consumption? Youth engagement and “parasocial media” (Dr James Dennis)
- The battle for trust in the Holyrood election (Prof Catherine Happer, Dr James Morrison, Dr Lluis de Nadal)
- Polls over policy in UK-wide TV news coverage of Elections (Dr Maxwell Modell, Dr Keighley Perkins, Prof Stephen Cushion)
- Legacy news coverage of the election – Leaders debate and press coverage (Dr Steven Harkins)
- All right, own up, who let the woman in? (Dr Fiona McKay, Dr Melody House)
- Negotiations of the constitutional question (Dr Maike Dinger)
Voters, polls and the electoral system
- Elections and voting as rituals: Comparing Scotland with Australia (Prof Ariadne Vromen)
- The electoral system: The most disproportional result yet (Prof Sir John Curtice)
- The system is working (as intended): What Scottish voters actually wanted on 7 May 2026 (Prof Christopher Carman, Prof Ailsa Henderson)
- The Meh election? Campaign dynamics in the 2026 Scottish Parliament election (Prof Christopher Carman, Prof Robert Johns)
- MRPs: a false dawn (Dr Eoghan Kelly)
- Changing electoral battlegrounds: The rise and fall of extreme two-party contests (Prof Ailsa Henderson)
- Distinctively left-wing? Comparing young Scottish people to the rest of the UK and older Scots (Dr Joe Greenwood-Hau)
- Scotland: A country of aging disruptors? (Dr Jan Eichhorn)
- Shifting tides: Gender, independence and constitutional politics in the 2026 Scottish election (Dr Emilia Belknap)
- Why did Reform make a breakthrough? Evidence from the Scottish Election Study (Dr Fraser McMillan)
- Mapping Reform UK’s vote in the 2026 Scottish Parliament election (Dr Davide Vampa)
- The SNP: hegemony in a time of crisis? (Dr Sebastian Dellepiane-Avellaneda, Prof Anthony McGann)
Democracy and representation
- Looking beyond numbers: Gender sensitivity in the new parliament (Prof Meryl Kenny, Prof Sarah Childs)
- Disability representation in the Scottish Parliament: Gains, gaps, and promises (Prof Stefanie Reher)
- More progress without parity? Ethnic minority representation at Holyrood after 2026 (Prof Nasar Meer FBA, Dr Timothy Peace)
- Who represents Scotland? Class and gender of Holyrood in 2026 (Shevaun Smith)
- Questions of representation: How diverse are our MSPs (Dr Lynn Bennie)
- Over the rainbow? What next for Scotland’s new “Rainbow Parliament”? (Prof Christopher Carman)
Policy implications
- Economic growth: The dog that didn’t bark in the 2026 Scottish election (Prof Sir Anton Muscatelli)
- The fiscal challenges facing the new government (Prof Graeme Roy)
- Everywhere and nowhere: The NHS in the 2026 Scottish election (Prof Ellen Stewart)
- Fuelling discontent: Scotland’s unjust transition election (Dr Ewan Gibbs)
- Immigration politics in Scotland after the election (Prof Sergi Pardos-Prado)
- The state of poverty: A future for governance (Dr Claire MacRae)
- Can the new Scottish Parliament meet the old challenges of public service reform? (Dr Ian C. Elliott)
- Choice on the ballot: What party manifestos say about abortion in 2026 (Dr Leah McCabe)
- Regeneration policy continuity and (limited) change (Prof Annette Hastings)
- Regionalism in question in Scotland (Dr David Waite
- Where next for Scottish education? (Prof Christopher Chapman)
- NATO, nukes and negotiations: The foreign policy challenges facing a second independence referendum (Prof Peter Jackson)
- Does the election result advance or hinder the independence cause? (Prof Nicola McEwen)
- Parliamentary work after the election (Dr Marc Geddes)
