Support for Labour continues to trail behind the SNP in Scotland, a new opinion poll has indicated.
Research by YouGov for the Scottish Sun suggested 46% of voters north of the border could back Nicola Sturgeon's party in the May 7 election, with 29% planning on voting Labour.
That could see the nationalists, who won six seats in the House of Commons in 2010, return 47 MPs this time around, with Labour losing all but 10 of the 41 Scottish constituencies it secured in in the last general election.
Meanwhile the research, which saw 1,864 voters north of the border questioned, put support for the Conservatives on 16% with the Liberal Democrats backed by just 3%.
The poll also suggested marginally more Scots would prefer to see David Cameron as prime minister than want Labour's Ed Miliband in power at Number 10.
The research was carried out between March 26 and March 31, before the TV debate with all seven parties leaders took place.
When asked who would make the best prime minister, 25% of those questioned opted for the Conservative leader, ahead of 24% for Mr Miliband, with 4% preferring Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. Almost half (47%) of Scots said they did not know who would perform best in the role.
SNP campaign director Angus Robertson said: "This poll is another welcome indication of the strong support for the SNP across the country, as people continue to respond positively to the SNP's message of delivering investment in jobs and growth in place of Westminster's mindless commitment to cuts.
"This poll confirms the SNP's momentum in our campaign to provide a strong voice for Scotland in a hung parliament at Westminster - and predates Nicola Sturgeon's brilliant performance in the leaders' debate, and the Westminster establishment's failed dirty tricks against Nicola.
"However, while the result is very welcome we are taking absolutely nothing for granted and will continue to work hard to keep winning the trust of people in Scotland.
"More anti-Tory MPs than Tory MPs at the election means that we can lock David Cameron out of Downing Street.
"And electing a strong team of SNP MPs will also ensure that Scotland has real power at Westminster to ensure that Scottish interests are served - and progressive politics delivered across the UK."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article