What I wrote above shows that such a "split", at constituency level, is irrelevant in terms of votes. Its supposed importance has been a chorus from London-based pundits who've proven that they can't get their heads around the D'Hondt system and the fact the situation is more nuanced than that.
If Salmond is to be taken at face value (a dangerous tack, but let's play along for now at least), that is not his intention, and not the aim of setting up this new party.
The counter to your argument is that the two "factions" are far from balanced. On the one hand we have a party that has long been in government in Scotland and has a proven track record, concrete policy proposals for the future (beyond seeking a new referendum) and a widely trusted leader. On the other we have a new "insurgent" party with a deeply unpopular personality with a seriously dodgy history at its helm, a threadbare agenda beyond a headlong drive to independence and certain socially conservative issues that's being cobbled together at a very late stage with little or no membership input, and a rag-tag collection of SNP defectors joining its ranks.
I've described what I see as the possible pitfalls for the SNP, but we've nearly six weeks of campaigning to try to thrash these issues out. The media may seek to make hay out of Salmond's re-emergence, but the SNP has gotten to where it is today despite almost universally hostile mainstream media treatment.
Salmond has largely shot his bolt. He bided his time until the two reports on Sturgeon's role in the run-up to his prosecution played out in her favour, then seems to have gone off half-cocked with a distinctly amateurish launch of his new party very late in the day. Pettiness and personal attacks on Sturgeon and her administration are nothing new from the Salmond faction (among others), they've been going on for the last couple of years, and they don't seem to have made any great difference in polling. Boredom and impatience with Salmond's persistence and lack of remorse are also factors. In fact, with the recent defections, the SNP is looking like it has strong potential to be a more coherent and unified force.
On past form, if the SNP are indeed reliant on the unionist parties running worse campaigns, then it's hardly worth wasting time on the elections!
We generally lump Scottish Labour in with the "unionist" side, but polling has shown that up to half their current supporters are in favour of a second independence referendum, if not independence itself, despite the unionist stance of their new leader, Anas Sarwar. The Scottish Tories have a new leader, Douglas Ross MP, who's distinctly unappealing in general and lacks recognition to the extent that Boris Johnson can't even get his name right, and they have no policies to speak of other than "SNP out" and slavishly following the UK Tory line, its many warts and all. Their previous media darling, Ruth Davidson, is ditching Scotland and what few principles she ever had to head off for the cosiness of the Lords. The LibDems are even more of a minor force in Holyrood than they are in the UK as a whole, have a joke of a leader in the bumptious bumpkin Willie Rennie, and will be lucky to hold onto the few seats they currently have. On the other hand, the pro-independence Scottish Greens are enjoying positive polling that has shown them at least doubling their current number of seats at list level, and they've indicated that they are wide open to some sort of coalition with the SNP.
We may have a slightly clearer view of the impact of Salmond's initiative after the next couple of rounds of Scotland-only polling. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
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