page_title: 2016 Scottish Parliament election
section_title: Opinion polling
hierarchical_section_title: 2016 Scottish Parliament election / Opinion polling
caption_attribution_description: English: Opinion polling for the 2016 Scottish Parliament election with average 30 day trendline. Semi-transparent lines represent the constituency vote, full lines represent the regional vote.
context_page_description: The 2016 Scottish parliament election was held on Thursday, 5 May 2016 to elect 129 members to the Scottish Parliament. It was the fifth election held since the devolved parliament was established in 1999. It was the first parliamentary election in Scotland in which 16 and 17 year olds were eligible to vote, under the provisions of the Scottish Elections Act. It was also the first time the three largest parties were led by women.
  Parliament went into dissolution on 24 March 2016, allowing the official period of campaigning to get underway. Five parties had MSPs in the previous parliament: Scottish National Party led by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish Labour led by Kezia Dugdale, Scottish Conservatives led by Ruth Davidson, Scottish Liberal Democrats led by Willie Rennie, Scottish Greens, led by their co-conveners Patrick Harvie and Maggie Chapman. Of those five parties, four changed their leader since the 2011 election.
  During the campaign, a series of televised debates took place, including party leaders of the elected parties. BBC Scotland held the first leaders’ debate on 24 March, STV broadcast the next on 29 March, and BBC Scotland hosted the final debate on 1 May.
context_section_description: The chart shows the relative state of the parties since polling began from 2012, until the date of the election. The constituency vote is shown as semi-transparent lines, while the regional vote is shown in full lines.
caption: Average 30 day trend line of poll results for the 2016 Scottish Parliament election. Results from 29 January 2012 to 4 May 2016
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