Danish Local Elections November 16th 2021

[Diouf]

In Holbæk, we have probably the most impressive result of all.
The Social Democrats are up 30.2% to 58.9%. The party now has 19 seats out of 31.
This is the place where Christina Krzyrosiak Hansen became the youngest mayor ever, aged 25. She has been a political superstar. Been everywhere in the national and local media, and has now completely crushed all other parties.
I will be amazed if she does not end up with the highest personal vote percentage of all. She will have gotten the large majority of the Social Democrat votes.
The Social Democrats only ran 24 candidates. Many of those elected will come in with minimal personal vote numbers. A big extended family should be enough for a councillor seat.

[Diouf]

Going to bed now. Frederiksberg now seem to be tilting a bit to the left. Still very close.

In Copenhagen Red-Green Alliance looks to be stronger than the Social Democrats.

[H. Ross Peron]

Why did the Social Democrats collapse in Copenhagen?

[CumbrianLefty]

Well you would imagine their right wing "turn" on social issues would go down poorly there.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Why did the Social Democrats collapse in Copenhagen?

One important factor is that in recent municipal elections they've been polling far ahead of what they poll there in national elections in part because of a very popular Mayor. Who was recently #metooed and has left public life.

[Diouf]

Yes the different in candidate quality compared to the previous election is certainly a factor, both negatively for the Social Democrats and positively for the Red-Green Alliance. The tougher line on immigration and law and order a factor. And then locally there has been complaints about Social Democrats building housing and business over prioritizing wildlife and nature, but that to me seems like a common complaint for dozens of years, so probably not a good explainer for the change this time.

[Diouf]

DPP leader Kristian Thulelsen Dahl has reacted to the poor electoral performance by making his position available. He says he is calling a meeting with the party's executive committee, where he will propose arranging an extraordinary congress to elect a new party leader.
The question is what the executive committe will say. One member, MP Liselotte Blixt, has said that she leans toward rejecting the notion as she can't see any obvious alternatives at the moment. Will be interesting to see what the others do.

[Diouf]

It's the worst Social Democratic performance in modern time (since the second-most recent municipal reform in 1970, where the tiny local parishes were merged into municipalities). 1.0% lower than the previous worst result in 2013.
The Liberals also decline. I can't find their previous local election results, but it hasn't been called the worst, so I guess one in the 80es might have been worse. (EDIT: They only got 18.0% in 1989). Also the decline is less than feared.
But this election is another in the portfolio of fragmentation, which is, as you know, a common theme in European elections where fair, proportional electoral systems are used.

Overall, the Red Bloc parties lose 1.7% compared to 2017. Very much in line with the national polling average, where the Red Bloc parties, due to the recent Social Democrat decline, was 1.3% below their 2017 standing. But the Red Bloc parties are still bigger in today's results (49.9%) than the Blue Bloc parties (46.3%) with other parties taking the last 3.8%.
Only 90 of the 98 mayors have been decided yet, so we can't compare these numbers yet.
The Liberals gain the Northern Jutland region from the Social Democrats. So the Liberals now have two regional chairmanships, while the Social Democrats have three.

The national result of the local elections
Social Democrats 28.5% (-3.9%)
Liberals 21.2% (-1.9%)
Conservatives 15.2% (+6.4%)
SPP 7.6% (+1.9%)
Red-Green Alliance 7.3% (+1.4%)
Social Liberals 5.6% (+1.0%)
DPP 4.1% (-4.7%)
New Right 3.6% (+2.7%)
Liberal Alliance 1.4% (-1,2%)
Christian Democrats 0.8% (+0.3%)
Alternative 0.7% (-2.2%)
Vegan Party 0.2% (new)
Others 3.8% (+0.1%)

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Impressive how quickly the local parties negotiate and agree on a mayor in Denmark.

Best case in Sweden, when there isn't an obvious winner, is a few days but it's usually more common that it takes a few weeks of negotiating before the new municipal leadership is agreed upon.   

[ingemann]

Why did the Social Democrats collapse in Copenhagen?

There was a lot factors, several which have already been mentioned.

1: The national effect.
2: Already existing trends.
3: Frank Jensen stopping.
4: Sophie Hæstorp Andersen being a far weaker candidate.
5: Changing demography with the traditional working class being replaced with white collar workers and students.
6: Low turnout.
7: Copenhageners having little interest in local politics and tending to vote national in local elections.

[Diouf]

Frederik Hjorth from Department of Political Science at University of Copenhagen has published the graph below.
The x-axis shows population density while the y-axis shows the change in Social Democratic support since 2017. Quite similar to the pattern in 2019; doing a lot better in less population dense areas. However, in 2019 the overall gains in towns and rural areas equalled the losses in urban areas. This time the line was lower, so they were just about holding steady in towns and rural areas and heavy losses in urban areas, so the overall result was a clear decline.

[Diouf]

Now the final coalition formation is done (at least for now). The final appointment of the new mayor takes place at the opening session of the city council, which is held during december. Once in a while there can be a late coup, where a party changes sides just before or even at the opening meeting, and helps an unexpected mayor being elected.
The net result was a gain of 4 mayors + 1 regional chairman for the Blue Bloc. So my pre-election prediction of a swing of 5 mayors to the right proved quite prescient. In the first half of the election night, I thought it could have underestimated the swing, but it turned out being quite on the nose.
Despite the Social Democrat losses, there was enough gains for SPP, Red-Green Alliance (and often the Social Liberals) to keep many Social Democrat mayors in their seats.

A brilliant night for the Conservatives, despite just losing Frederiksberg. DPP's collapse and the resulting leadership election is another major story. A quite poor Social Democrat performance, and less bad than feared for the Liberals. Progress for all of the three non-Social Democrat majority parties. Quite a breakthrough for the New Right which is now represented in many city halls. Christian Democrats gained slightly, but it's still very much a party with a couple of local strongholds and then many places without basically getting any votes or having any decent candidates. A bad loss for the Liberal Alliance who went just below the threshold in many places or just become the small partner in an electoral alliance. Their first mayor post in Solrød helps them save some honor. It was always gonna be difficult compared to 2017, before the party's crash towards the threshold. The Alternative also lost a lot of ground and ended up with only 5 councillors. They now have two seats in Copenhagen, including one for party leader Franciska Rosenkilde. They held their seat in Thisted (largely thanks to the continued influx of surfers, song writers and other greenish, urban types to Cold Hawaii in Klitmøller) + Skanderborg and then had that suprise gain in Viborg I saw coming. The result was quite bad, but perhaps it still helped a bit in the battle among the green dwarfs. The Vegan Party is a complete non-entity with relatively few candidates, only 0.2% nationally and only 0.6% in Copenhagen, and the Independent Greens weren't even running. So maybe these elections could help remind people of the Alternative's existence and give them a chance to unite the green voters with them.

There is still two mayors from other lists, but it's two new mayors compared to last time. One of them is Karina Vincentz in Odsherred for the local Nyt Odsherred, a split from the Liberals. The other is for the German minority party Slesvigsk Parti, which ended with the mayoral post for Jørgen Popp Petersen in border municipality Tønder.

Social Liberals have already announced that they will change the leadership of umbrella organisation Danish Regions from Liberal Stephanie Lose, chairmen of Southern Denmark region, to Social Democrat Anders Kühnau, chairman of Central Jutland region. Normally, the Social Liberals like to have one red and one blue in charge of the umbrella organisations, so this could be a sign that they wants to move the leadership of the Association of Municipalities away from Social Democratic Jacob Bundsgaard, mayor of Aarhus, to a Liberal mayor. The most likely options are probably Viborg mayor Ulrik Wilbek or Martin Damm, the Kalundborg mayor who has held the post previously.

Municipal election
Social Democrats 755 councillors (-87) 43 mayors (-4)
Liberals 620 (-68) 35 (-2)
Conservatives 404 (+179) 14 (+6)
SPP 168 (+42) 2 (+1)
Red-Green Alliance 114 (+12) 0 (=)
Social Liberals 94 (+14) 1 (=)
DPP 90 (-133) 0 (-1)
New Right 65 (+64) 0 (=)
Christian Democrats 11 (+2) 0 (=)
Liberal Alliance 9 (-19) 1 (+1)
Alternative 5 (-15) 0 (-1)
Others 101 (+13) 2 (=)

Regional election
Social Democrats 64 councillors (-6) 3 regional chairmen (-1)
Liberals 54 (=) 2 (+1)
Conservatives 31 (+16)
Red-Green Alliance 14 (+2)
SPP 14 (-1)
Social Liberals 12 (+4)
New Right 8 (+8)
DPP 6 (-15)
Christian Democrats 1 (=)
Liberal Alliance 0 (-5)
Alternative 0 (-3)
Others 1 (=)

[Diouf]

The top municipal personal vote getters, according to share of available votes.
All five of them incumbent mayors with an impressive popularity. Christina Krzyrosiak of course the most outstanding story of them all, getting close to half of all votes in the municipality herself.

1. Christina Krzyrosiak (Social Democrat) 18 590 personal votes (46.5% of all votes in Holbæk)
2. Birgit S. Hansen (Social Democrat) 13 230 personal votes (40.5% of all votes in Frederikshavn)
3. Kenneth Muhs (Liberal) 6 318 personal votes (33.1% of all votes in Nyborg)
4. Michael Ziegler (Conservative) 6 582 personal votes (27.4% of all votes in Høje Taastrup)
5. Steffen Jensen (Social Democrat) 4 589 personal votes (27% of all votes in Halsnæs)

Top five regional vote getters, according to share of available votes
The regional vote shares are naturally not as extraordinary. Only really Stephanie Lose with an outstanding result. The regional elections are second-order on this day, so more voters tend to just revert to their national party in this vote. Also the regional councillors are less visible day-to-day. Finally, the lead candidates share are also relatively low as many voters choose to vote personally for a local candidate from their municipality instead of the lead candidate, which can often be from a municipality quite far away. Often, there are several ex-mayors or former prominent councillors, who then scoop up a lot of votes in a certain area.

1. Stephanie Lose (Liberal) 147 486 personal votes (22.2% of all votes in Southern Denmark region)
2. Heino Knudsen (Social Democrat) 50 905 personal votes (11.2% of all votes in Zealand region)
3. Ulla Astman (Social Democrat) 31 717 personal votes (9.8% of all votes in Northern Jutland region)
4. Mads Duedahl (Liberal) 22 007 personal votes (6.8% of all votes in Northern Jutland)
5. Anders Kühnau (Social Democrat) 47 116 personal votes (6.4% of all votes in Central Jutland region)

[Diouf]

Social Liberals have already announced that they will change the leadership of umbrella organisation Danish Regions from Liberal Stephanie Lose, chairmen of Southern Denmark region, to Social Democrat Anders Kühnau, chairman of Central Jutland region. Normally, the Social Liberals like to have one red and one blue in charge of the umbrella organisations, so this could be a sign that they wants to move the leadership of the Association of Municipalities away from Social Democratic Jacob Bundsgaard, mayor of Aarhus, to a Liberal mayor. The most likely options are probably Viborg mayor Ulrik Wilbek or Martin Damm, the Kalundborg mayor who has held the post previously.

They did indeed want a Liberal, and it will again be Martin Damm, mayor of Kalundborg, who also led the organisation from 2014-18.

[Diouf]

In perhaps a signal that the New Right vetting of candidates wasn't good enough, we are just a week into the new term and already 2 of their 65 councillors are no longer in the party. The elected councillor in Skive has been thrown out after insisting during the campaign that he would support a Social Democrat mayor despite the party's mandate to only support Blue Bloc mayors. And today their elected councillor in Viborg left the party after the local chapter had announced a lack of confidence in him, because he cheated them when filling out the candidate papers for the election. Instead of choosing a open list, he declared the party as running on a semi-closed list. This means he, as lead candidate, got elected ahead of another candidate despite getting fewer personal votes. He rejected to step back and give the seat to the candidate who deserved it.