Almost two-thirds of voters plan to back the SNP in May’s Holyrood election, according to a new poll.
The research by TNS puts support for the party at 60% in the constituency vote, with Scottish Labour trailing on 21%.
The poll of 1,036 adults found “no evidence” to support the idea that the Scottish Conservatives could overtake Kezia Dugdale’s party for second place, with the Tories falling back to 13%.
Of those who expressed a preference and were certain to vote on the day, 4% said they would do so for the Liberal Democrats.
In the regional section of the vote, support for the Nationalists was on 55%, while 21% said they would vote Labour, 13% backed the Tories, 4% the Lib Dems and 6% the Greens.
Tom Costley, head of TNS Scotland, said: “There is no evidence from this February data that the Conservatives in Scotland have made any progress in narrowing the gap with Labour, to claim to be the second party – indeed, if anything, they have fallen back a little.
“With nine weeks to go, time is running out for opposition parties to make real inroads into SNP polling dominance.”
The poll found more than a third (35%) thought SNP management of the health service was good while 30% said it was poor, 31% said neither and 3% did not know.
Just 22% said performance on the economy over the last 12 months had been good, while almost a quarter (24%) said it was poor, 49% said neither and 5% could not say.
On crime and justice, 23% had a favourable opinion of the Government’s record, with 28% saying it was poor, 42% saying neither and 7% saying they did not know.
The proportion of respondents who thought educational performance had been good and those who said the opposite both increased by 4%, to 34% and 23% respectively.
Meanwhile, separate research by Survation for the Scottish Daily Mail found almost a quarter (24%) of Scots back the 1p rise in income tax proposed by Labour and the Lib Dems, while 41% want the basic rate to remain unchanged and 18% want a 1p cut.
That poll put constituency support for the SNP on 54%, Labour on 21%, the Tories on 16%, the Liberal Democrats on 5% and others at 4%.
In the regional list section, backing for the SNP was 43% with Labour on 19% and the Conservatives on 14%.
The Scottish Greens were on 9% with Ukip on 6%, just behind the Liberal Democrats on 7%.