Denmark’s Moderates continue surge with one week until election

The Moderates stand to gain an 11.5 percent of the vote share in the election, according to a new poll by analysis institute Voxmeter, published on Monday.

The new party has grown its support remarkably since the election was announced earlier this month, having been at 8.8 percent last week and just 2.2 percent four weeks ago.

Ny meningsmåling fra @voxmeter:@moderaterne_dk fortsætter fremgangen og får 11,5%. @KonservativeDK får 6% og er dermed gået 10,5 %-p tilbage siden august.

Bedste måling i år til @SFpolitik med 9,6%.@Spolitik 25%@venstredk 13,2%
DD 8,1%@LiberalAlliance 7,3%#dkpol #fv22 pic.twitter.com/DFzVV5OliI

— Anna Midtgaard Christensen (@Annamidtgaard) October 25, 2022

If the result of the election was in line with the poll, the party would gain 21 seats in parliament in its first election. There are a total of 179 seats on offer.

That could give leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen the decisive say in whether the ‘red’ or ‘blue’ bloc of allied parties takes an overall majority in the election.

Neither the left- nor right-wing blocs has an overall majority without Moderate seats according to the poll, which gives the red bloc 83 seats and the blue bloc 71, both short of the necessary 90.

Rasmussen has not committed his party to either faction, saying he wants a centrist government with parties from both sides of the traditional divide.

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While the Moderates have had a successful election campaign to date, the Conservative party – which was in line to become the second-largest in parliament as recently as the summer – has seen its popularity fall away to just 6 percent. It was at 6.7 percent in the preceding poll and 11 percent four weeks ago.

The centre-left Social Liberal (Radikale Venstre) party is also struggling, with its 3.8 point score placing it on course to lose half its seats in parliament.

The governing Social Democrats and opposition Liberal (Venstre) parties are set to remain the two largest parties in parliament. Their current polls give them 25 percent and 13.2 percent vote shares respectively.

Third largest would be the Moderates, according to the poll, followed by the left-wing Socialist People’s Party (SF), an ally of the current government, on 9.6 percent. SF has returned improving poll results during the campaign and looks likely to improve on its result at the 2019 election, when it took 7.7 percent of the votes and 14 seats.

The far-right Danish People’s Party and environmentalist Alternative parties both appear to be struggling to reach the minimum 2 percent share of the vote required to qualify for representation in parliament. They are currently polling at 1.9 percent and 1.7 percent respectively. That would see both parties lose all their existing seats.

The poll was conducted between October 22nd and 24th using responses from 1,004 Danish voters.

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