Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay has stated that poor polling projections are serving as motivation for his party ahead of the Holyrood election. Mr Findlay emphasised that the party has historically defied expectations when experts had written them off, and he urged voters to help repeat that by supporting the Scottish Tories on the peach-coloured regional list ballot paper.
Campaigning in Burnside, South Lanarkshire, on Saturday, he was accompanied by former Scottish Conservative leader Baroness Ruth Davidson, who described the peach ballot as a "voters' secret weapon." Recent polls indicate that the Tories, who held the position of the second-largest party in the Scottish Parliament after the last election, could face significant losses this time around.
One survey conducted by More in Common projects that the Tories would drop to 12 seats, a sharp decline from the 31 seats they secured in 2021. Mr Findlay commented to the Press Association: "These polls are motivating us because we are so used to being written off. If you look at previous elections, all the experts said the Scottish Conservatives would have a dreadful result. We proved them wrong, and the way in which we did so is using that peach-coloured ballot paper to return as many Conservative MSPs as possible, to stop the SNP. We are standing up for hard-working Scots. We want to reduce their taxes. We want to get Scotland working again. We have got the people to do so, and we have got the plan to do so."
The major multilevel regression with post-stratification (MRP) poll for More in Common surveyed over 5,000 Scots between February 4 and April 10. According to the survey, the SNP would fall to 56 seats, down from 64 at the last election. Reform would move into second place with 22 seats, while Labour would drop to 17 MSPs and remain in third.
When asked whether Lady Davidson joined the campaign trail because the party felt it needed an extra boost, Mr Findlay stated: "I am joined by colleagues every single day. Last week, I was up in Aberdeenshire with Douglas Ross, our former leader. Today, I am delighted to be joined by Ruth, and every day we are out, a huge, enthusiastic team, because we all understand how critical this election is. John Swinney thinks he is going to walk back into Bute House, immediately demand another referendum from the weakest Prime Minister in living memory, and that is the last thing that Scotland needs. People are desperate to have common-sense MSPs at Holyrood focused on the cost of living, and that is what we are doing."
Mr Findlay and Lady Davidson were campaigning in Glasgow with Annie Wells, the Scottish Conservative candidate for the Rutherglen and Cambuslang constituency and the party's lead candidate for Glasgow on the regional list. He said that voting Scottish Conservative on the regional list stopped an SNP majority in 2016 and 2021 and urged people to do so again on May 7.
His comments were echoed by Lady Davidson, who said: "The peach ballot paper is voters' secret weapon – and it is vital they cast it for the Scottish Conservatives to stop an SNP majority. Labour are too weak to stand up to John Swinney, while Reform cannot even claim to be a unionist party when they are fielding pro-independence candidates and Lord Offord is relaxed about another referendum. Russell and the Scottish Conservatives are the only party that can be trusted to defend the Union."
The SNP, Scottish Labour, and Reform have been asked for comment.
