DENMARK - 5 June 2019 election

[DavidB.]

It's going to be June 5th. Could mgop or a mod add this to the thread title?

[DavidB.]

Would also be nice with a poll with all the parties at the top.

This would be better for Individual Politics. We don't really want all sorts of random comments with "Social Democrats" or "Danish People's Party, yay!" here, right?

[DavidB.]

Politiken.dk has a voting compass test: https://politiken.dk/indland/politik/FV19/Kandidattest/.

I got:
DF 73%
NB 72%
V 72%
LA 66%
Conservative 60%
Social Democrats 54%
RV 41%
Christian Democrats 40%
Red-Greens 39%
SF 34%
Alternative 31%
Riskaer 31%

More right-wing than I thought. Judging by the results this is because of my answers on education and the economy. Would consider voting for DF, NB and SK at this point, leaning towards DF.

[DavidB.]

What's the orientation of the Conservative People's Party at this point? New Right is an anti-immigration breakaway, right? So the rump Conservative People's Party is less anti-immigration, is that correct?

Also, remind me of the difference between the Social Liberals, the Alternative, and the Liberal Alliance again?

Finally, I assume all the immigrant skeptic/assimilationist elements in the Socialist People's Party have been forced out?

Might be worth it just to do a post summing up all the parties.

The Conservatives are positioned to the right of Venstre and have an orientation towards law and order/defense and these sort of issues. They're the party for older upper-middle class people, mostly in and around Copenhagen (as opposed to Venstre, who have a rural/agricultural Jutland wing and a pro-business wing). Younger people with a similar socio-economic background to Conservative voters tend to opt for the Liberal Alliance.

The Social Liberals are your standard pro-immigration, neoliberal, Eurofederalist centrist party, still aligned with the left-wing Red bloc but purely economically more aligned with the right. They also steered the previous Red bloc government (2011-2015) in a pretty neoliberal direction. The Alternative is a green party for young people and attracts students as well as immigrants and the 'creative' classes, as they call them. They're also part of the left-wing Red bloc.

The Liberal Alliance is part of the right-wing Blue bloc and calls itself classical liberal, afaik - it's mostly oriented towards lowering taxes for people with high incomes (at which they have failed in the current government due to DPP influence, which is why they're tanking in the polls), moderately/softly euroskeptical and largely in sync with the Danish center-right consensus when it comes to immigration.

Immigration is not an issue the Socialist People's Party likes to prioritize, but generally they're softer than the Social Democrats but not as soft as the Alternative.

[DavidB.]

Weird that the Liberals are big in rural areas and the Conservatives have most of their support in urban areas. That's the opposite of the way it usually is in most countries where there's parties called "Conservative" and "Liberal".

It makes sense if you view the Danish conservatives as the conservative elite in and around the capital city, whereas the liberals stand in the Nordic liberal tradition of farmers outside the capital wishing for the government and the elites, far away in the capital city (don't underestimate the degree to which Copenhagen felt, was, and to a certain extent still is far away from Jutland), to leave them alone.

[DavidB.]

Also a great way for him to lose votes to the Conservatives and LA, I imagine...

[DavidB.]

If I understand things right, Venstre is preparing for a political collapse? If so, why? I know the social dems and the right-populist parties are doing well in polling, but don't know the details of domestic politics there.

No, it's DPP (the right-wing populists) who are going to collapse. Venstre are merely set to lose a bit more compared to their already very poor 2015 result.

The DPP are losing because of a) the fact that the SocDems have moved right on immigration, b) the DPP had a role in a set of pretty unpopular policies regarding healthcare and the regions, viewed negatively by their more working-class and older base c) increased competition to the DPP's right (Hard Line + New Right), d) the fact that they can't really be viewed as anti-establishment anymore given that they've been necessary partners for the government for the last 14 out of 18 years.

[DavidB.]

Prediction time:

S 28.5%
V 17%
DF 10%
SF 9%
EL 8.5%
RV 8.5%
C 6%
LA 3.5%
Å 2.5%
NB 2.5%
SK 2%
K 1.5%
E 0.5%

Reds: 57%
Blues: 43%

Turnout 89%

[DavidB.]

Last poll by DR. More evidence for "clown world" if it's true that V will be gaining this much after their erratic campaign...

[DavidB.]

Turnout at 10 AM was 19.8%, five points up from 2015, when it was 14.8%. But this time, polling stations opened one hour earlier, at 8 instead of 9.

[DavidB.]

A 62-year old school teacher named Lars Peter Nielsen 'mooned' Hard Line leader Rasmus Paludan when the latter went to vote in a school. Nielsen was fined for it.

[DavidB.]

Ah, I was already wondering. At 2 PM, turnout was 51.3% compared to 38.1% in 2015. Final turnout was 85.9% in 2015. I have a feeling it's going to be close to 90% this time.

Did you vote Liberal again?

[DavidB.]

Turnout at 4 was 62.7%. Respect.

[DavidB.]

if A does well expected and recaptures power should not this show a path for the various Socialists parties in Europe a way to win back votes that have drifted toward populist Right parties over the last decade ?

Yes, which is why this election is more closely followed than usual in many Western European countries: a good result for the Social Democrats has broader implications for the way their counterparts across the continent could find the way up again.

[DavidB.]

Rumor sent to me: 51.7% red, 48.3% blue. Taking it with a ton of salt, but if this is true, it's probably amazing news for either V or DF and S has underperformed.

[DavidB.]

It would seem that the Greens and Ø would have more pull in the next government given the relative strength of their performance and the so-so performance of S. I wonder if that would force S into a less populistic approach to immigration.

The counterargument is that DF voters moving to S and (thereby) crossing the aisle still won the Red Bloc parties a majority in this election, which wouldn't have been possible without S' rightward turn on immigration. It did cause S to lose more pro-immigration voters to parties to its left, however, which caused these parties to win too.

But if S now turns left on immigration, it will lose its credibility on immigration and it will also lose a lot of voters to DF. Frederiksen and Tesfaye also spent too much politicial credit on it to drop this.

It will make negotiations harder, though. The combination S-DF-SF isn't even close to a majority and parties like Radikale and the Red-Greens will undoubtedly try to make your argument.

[DavidB.]

Seems like DR has a new prognosis, with S up now and Stram Kurs in.

[DavidB.]

Would be a big relief if the Social Democrats are actually gaining compared to 2015, good for the optics. And I want the Christian Democrats out and Paludan in, but I guess he's got his constituency seat either way.

[DavidB.]

According to the prognosis SK is at 2% yet doesn't have 4, but only 2 seats. I guess 2% is then rounded up and it's actually lower, but they have two candidates (among those Paludan) winning constituency seats...

[DavidB.]

DF keep losing in the prognosis, now at the same level of Radikale... SK now at 4 seats.

[DavidB.]

SK got 2.1% in Tårnby, a residential area in South Copenhagen. Seems low. DF got 27% last time and 11.3% this time here. Guessing most DF2015 vote switchers went to V.

[DavidB.]

Turnout could end up lower than in 2015. In Tønder nomination district, turnout was 81.04%, compared to 84.65% in 2015

Turnout seems to be lower almost everywhere. Disappointing...

[DavidB.]

DR's result site allows you to look at results per multimember constituency:

https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/resultater/folketingsvalg

Christian Democrats prognosis in Western Jutland on 5.3%, which would be enough for a constituency seat.

And SK at 2.9% in Zealand, which apparently isn't enough. How much would they need?

[DavidB.]

Radikale now above DF. Oof. Meanwhile SK's returns don't seem to be good enough...

[DavidB.]

At this point looks like Red Bloc will win as Social Democrats have pulled ahead, my guess is urban polls take longer to come in thus why looked good for Blue Bloc at first.  Still will be interesting to see who meets threshold and what type of coalition is formed.

Wow, thanks for this wonderful insight!