The SNP was within touching distance of securing a groundbreaking second majority last night as the polls closed in Scotland.
The final result of the Holyrood election will not be known until later today but polls have long predicted victory for Nicola Sturgeon’s Nationalists.
The fight for second place, between the Scottish Labour party and the Scottish Conservatives, has been on a knife-edge for weeks.
Last night, senior Labour figures were admitting they expected to lose every constituency seat in their one-time Glasgow stronghold. An hour after the polls closed, Johann Lamont, the former Scottish Labour leader, admitted: “The pessimist in me would say that, given the polls, that would be what we might expect. I do think we have fought very hard.”
Earlier, Ms Sturgeon said she was “feeling good” as she voted in Glasgow.
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She was joined by Peter Murrell, her husband, at a polling station in Baillieston, Glasgow, under grey clouds but without the rain that party strategists feared would depress turnout.
On leaving the polling station, Ms Sturgeon said: “We’ve fought a great campaign.”
Despite the decent weather, early indications suggested a much lower turnout than in last year’s general election. That vote had a remarkable 71 per cent turnout north of the border.
If there is a significantly lower proportion this time, it suggests that the huge surge in political involvement caused by the independence referendum is abating. However, other commentators have pointed to the fact that the Holyrood election has been lacking in energy.
A YouGov poll for The Times published yesterday put the SNP on 69 seats, the Conservatives on 24 and Labour on 21. It forecast nine Green MSPs and six Liberal Democrats.
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That would see Ms Sturgeon mirror the success of her predecessor, Alex Salmond, in 2011.
In the final days of campaigning, the SNP, obviously anxious about the Greens eating into their regional vote, launched a massive get-out-the- Nationalist-vote operation across Scotland. Patrick Harvie’s party fought a second-vote strategy — in the same way that Ruth Davidson did for the Conservatives. Last night, senior Tory strategists were hopeful that they had got their voters out and could even record some constituency successes.
Meanwhile, Scottish Labour was contemplating the prospect of finishing behind a party that has long been considered toxic north of the border.
Kezia Dugdale, Scottish Labour leader, cast her vote in Edinburgh accompanied by her partner Louise Riddell yesterday morning.
Ms Dugdale has acknowledged she still has work to do to rebuild the party into a force capable of unseating the SNP but has been adamant throughout the campaign that she would not be beaten into third place. However, she has had to deal with the reverberations of the antisemitic row that has struck at the heart of Jeremy Corbyn’s UK Labour party.
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Ms Davidson voted yesterday with a huge smile on her face and an apparently cast-iron conviction that she will lead her party to a better result than Labour in Scotland for the first time in 60 years.
She cast her vote at St Mary’s Parish Centre polling station in Edinburgh city centre, accompanied by her partner, Jen Wilson.
The Scottish Tory leader declined photographers’ invitations to demonstrate a V for victory sign but she added: “I’ve just voted twice for the Conservatives because I want a strong opposition in Scotland.”
Willie Rennie, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, is hoping he can hang on to the five MSPs the party won in 2011 but he fears the Liberal Democrats are being squeezed, both by the popularity of the SNP and the improvement in the campaigning techniques of the smaller parties.
Mr Harvie arrived on his bicycle at a polling station in his Glasgow Kelvin target seat early yesterday morning, one of only three constituencies his party is contesting.
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The nationalist left is also represented by newcomer Rise, which has earned the support of Jim Sillars, the former SNP deputy leader, and Solidarity, led by Tommy Sheridan, the former Scottish Socialist MSP.
Ukip has also concentrated on the regional list ballot and is hoping to secure at least one MSP, emulating its success in the 2014 European parliament election — when David Coburn became the party’s first Scottish parliamentarian.
The SNP confounded both expectations and the proportional electoral system used for Holyrood elections to secure an unprecedented majority in 2011. Ms Sturgeon, who has never led her party into a Scottish election before, has been desperate to replicate the party’s success under Mr Salmond and secure a mandate for her own premiership.
Yesterday’s YouGov polling for The Times came with a warning that she must use that mandate to govern, rather than pursue a second independence referendum.
Making the case for independence was second last in a list of voters’ 11 priorities.