Danish referendum on EU defence opt-out, 1 June 2022

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As a part of a new emergency defence settlement, Danish PM Mette Frederiksen has just announced that a referendum on the defence opt-out from EU will be held on 1 June 2022.

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Poll by Megafon for TV2 and Politiken from the 4th March.

49% for abolishing the opt-out, 27% against, 23% not sure/don't know

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New poll on the referendum after it had been officially called.

Again Megafon for TV2 and Politiken. Now 55% in favour of abolishing the opt-out, 23% against, 22% don't know.

By 2019 party breakdown (caution around the smaller parties ofc). A bit of a weird choice to use that instead of current party.

Social Democrats 58/17/25
Liberals 70/14/17
Conservatives 73/14/13
Red-Green Alliance 31/38/31
Social Liberals 82/6/12
SPP 64/11/25
New Right 19/72/9
DPP 25/49/25
Liberal Alliance 57/27/16
Christian Democrats 51/17/33
Alternative 41/30/28
Hard Line 0/75/25
Klaus Riskjær Pedersen 47/28/25
Others 28/34/38

https://nyheder.tv2.dk/politik/2022-03-08-et-flertal-vil-afskaffe-forsvarsforbeholdet-viser-ny-maaling

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Adding together the blocs, the Red Bloc is 58/18/24 while the Blue Bloc is 55/26/19. Have Red Bloc voters ever been more pro-EU in a referendum than blue Blue Bloc voters (I seem to remember the former were a bit more eurosceptic in 2015 and likely a lot more so previously)?

I would think it was the case in 2015.
I can't find any research from after the result itself. I could only find these polls from a few days before. Here in Epinion the Blue voters were 33-39% against converting the opt-out to an opt-in, while Red Bloc voters favoured the change 40-35%. In the Gallup poll, Blue voters were 37-48%, while Red voters were 43-38%.

https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/htm/baggrund/generel/Retsforbeholdet%20-%20M%C3%A5ling%203%20-%20Afstemning.pdf

https://webtest.kantargallup.dk/storage/reports/September2019/pvi1qWmhZpFl5ZoHHf6U.pdf

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The most recent Voxmeter poll shows 40.3% yes, 35.4% no and 24.3% don't know.

Today Inger Støjberg announced that she will campaign for no. The decision was announced on her weekly video show which had Kristian Thulesen Dahl as guest. The two will campaign together, which has added to the rumours of a potential new party.

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I recall seeing exit polls from a previous EU referendum (I think it was the Europol one) that showed young people are significantly less pro-EU than older people. Is that really the case and if so, why? The only countries I can think of where something similar may be happening are places in a deep crisis like Greece or maybe Italy that obviously aren't comparable to Denmark.

A pretty significant explainer must be party choice. Liberals and Social Democrats have been quite dominant among the older generations. And the votes lost by the Liberals there, probably mainly went to another yes party, the Conservatives. So if everybody just followed their party's recommendation, one should imagine a bigger yes vote among older people than among the younger generations.

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Epinon for DR: 36% yes, 27% no, 33% don't know.

The article has the splits on gender and youth.
Men: 42%, 30%, 24%
Women: 31%, 23%, 41%

18-34 years: 27%, 22%, 42%
35-55 years: 35%, 30%, 31%
56-years+: 44%, 26%, 27%

https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/folkeafstemning-om-forsvarsforbehold-hver-tredje-er-i-tvivl

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Interesting article in Avisen Denmark about who the main characters of the referendum campaign is expected to be. The campaign will officially start on 7 May.

It says that Jakob Ellemann-Jensen has convinced MEP Søren Gade to join him as the front figures of the party's yes campaign. A significant victory for the yes side if Gade throws his weight fully behind it. He belongs to the more Eurosceptic part of the party, often disagrees with fellow Liberal MEP Morten Løkkegaard and has been rumoured as potentially joining up with Støjberg. He was a well-liked Minister of Defence and, despite not being a lead candidate, ended up with 201 696 personal votes in the 2019 European election, second of all candidates. He is particularly well-liked in the Liberal heartlands in Western and Northern Jutland.

The article states that of the five party leaders agreeing the National Compromise, Sofie Carsten Nielsen (Social Liberals) and Pia Olsen Dyhr (SPP) will, like Ellemann, go into the campaign fully, while Conservative leader Søren Pape and PM Mette Frederiksen will be less involved. Pape is hamstrung by internal disagreements. The nationalist wing is now dominant in the party's youth section, which therefore recommends a no, and is doing its best to whip party activists to campaign for no. Pape also doesn't want to enter the campaign as it could risk losing some of his new, more Eurosceptic voters, to DPP or New Right. For the government, it will be Minister of Defence, Morten Bødskov, playing the main role in the campaign. He is not the biggest ticket seller, but might have some gravitas as a fairly pragmatic, safe pair of hands, not an elitist, ideological pro-EU campaigner.

The part on the no-campaign is shorter, but makes the obvious conclusion that DPP's Morten Messerschmidt has been the main face of the no campaign so far, with Mai Villadsen (Red-Green Alliance) and Pernille Vermund (New Right) more quiet. Messerschmidt of course has the biggest EU-expertise and engagement so has a head start there, but maybe also the party leader who sees the biggest gain from dominating the no campaign. The Red-Greens seem a bit shell-shocked from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the pervasiveness of pro-Russian sentiments among parts of the party. Also a fair bit of their voters are fairly pro-EU, so they are not in a hurry to push them away.

https://avisendanmark.dk/artikel/dalls-analyse-eu-valgkamp-bliver-morten-b%C3%B8dskov-og-s%C3%B8ren-gade-mod-morten-messerschmidt?rss

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The tabloid Ekstra Bladet recommending a no. And it seems like they will even make a campaign for it, see the picture of the bus with the text "Are we only voting because of the war?". I can't remember seeing a newspaper doing this before. They will usually recommend things in the paper's editorials, but not campaign as such.

https://twitter.com/Knud_brix/status/1521197861312118784

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The campaign officially started yesterday.
Some pictures below of some of the posters.

https://twitter.com/alternativet_/status/1522942785430634496

https://twitter.com/PorebskiFilip/status/1523010714536841216

https://twitter.com/lytken/status/1522895894651228161

https://twitter.com/OliverAbildskov/status/1523241306398412800

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An overview of the polling, courtesy of Politiologi.dk

There seems to be a fairly stable lead for the yes side, but there are still about 25-30% undecideds in most of the polls. So once those people (perhaps) start tuning in at the last minute, there could be some significant movement still.

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If anything it seems like the polls are moving towards a bigger win for the yes side now.
The polling graph above updates automatically, and both of the two most recent polls, from Megafon + Gallup, the yes-% is above 65%

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So the vote is tomorrow. Polls are open from 08.00 - 20.00. I presume we will get exit polls immediately after 20.00. And this should be a quite simple count, so real results should start coming in quickly.

As usual it should be possible to watch unrestricted streams from dr.dk and tv2.dk .

And the main broadsheet newspapers jp.dk and b.dk and politiken.dk will also have live coverage.

The official results are at https://kmdvalg.dk/Main

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Ritzau says 61.6% turnout at 19, an hour before the polls close. So we could perhaps end up towards 66-68 %. Would have guessed at about 10-15% lower than that

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Exit poll in DR

Yes 69,1%
No 30,9%

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This would be by far the biggest yes-percentage in any Danish EU referendum. The entry referendum in 1972 had a 63.3% yes-vote, the highest so far.

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TV2s exit poll also with a clear yes, but a few percentage less.

Yes 66.6%
No 33.4%

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The first tiny island results are already coming in on kmdvalg.dk

First out was Drejø, south of Funen, in Svendborg municipality. They published their result already at 20.04.
A turnout of 53 out of 60 eligible voters. 51 valid votes. 37 yes, 14 no.

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Kristian Thulesen Dahl, DPP's ex-leader and defence spokesperson, has decided not to turn up for the DPP electoral party at Christiansborg, instead choosing to watch it with his family at home. Both Pia Kjærsgaard and Morten Messerschmidt have expressed their dissatisfaction. Messerschmidt just said in an interview that he only found out on Twitter, and that he is disappointed in the decision. Saying that he himself has always shown up to all electoral parties.

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First full municpality result. The small island Læsø with around 1000 eligible voters. 50.4% yes, 49.6% no.

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21.2% already counted. 62.96% yes 37.04% no.
Normally, they would start changing the exit poll into a prognosis now, taking into account the votes already counted. But with the count going so fast, perhaps they won't even bother.

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52.6% counted
65.16% yes
34.84% no

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88.1% counted
66.52% yes
33.48% no

The Foreign Minister, Jeppe Kofod, and Finance Minister, Nicolai Wammen, has just arrived to Christiansborg. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is expected soon as well. Once she has delivered her speech, there will be a TV debate from the chamber between the party leaders.