Leggsy posted:

A few pages back but funnily enough, I wrote my dissertation on this very subject years back. And much like any dissertation I can't quite remember what I wrote in it. If I recall the TL:DR was much like what namesake said in his post.

Plaid was actually very slightly more successful than the SNP in their first respective assembly elections and their vote shares stayed in sync in '03 as well. And even in 2007 when the SNP took government they were only ahead of Plaid by about 10%. I do remember arguing that Plaid's problem was that they never really managed to detach themselves from being a minority interest party. Even to this day if you were to ask someone what Plaid's top priority is, it would probably still be promoting Welsh language and culture. The SNP, on the other hand managed to diversify and even play down their nationalist tendencies to an extent in 2007 to appeal as a "safe" alternative to Labour for left-leaning unionists. Of course, after winning the 2011 majority they had no choice to go back to banging the drum for independence. Which actually cost them electorally if you look at the few elections between 2011 and 2014 (most notably, failing to break Labour's Glasgow majority in 2012 when they were widely expected to).