In the 2014 Scottish Referendum, support for independence was correlated with age, gender, social grade and perceived identity. Young people, men, working class voters and those who identified as “Scottish but not British” were most likely to have supported independence. This
was reflected in both contemporaneous snap polls, such as Lord Ashcroft’s eve of vote survey, and the more comprehensive Scottish Referendum Survey, published six months later.
With the notable exception of gender, these results are reflected in our Wave 1 poll today, whose large sample allows us to interrogate demographic and cultural effects with greater confidence. However, since 2014, many of these differences have become considerably wider, suggesting a polarisation of the Scottish electorate on the issue of independence. Figure 7 below sets out the change in Yes lead between 2014 and our poll in 2021. The shifts among 18-35s and C2DE voters are the most striking.
