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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   1075 thread views

Transnational Thursday for September 10, 2026

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So, election night in Sweden. Polling stations are closing like now, and the exit polls are dropping immediately afterwards. They are usually accurate and will give an early indication of which bloc won.

Who are the parties?

Left wing bloc:

  • Left
  • Social Democrats
  • Green

Kingmaker:

  • Centre

Right wing bloc (government):

  • Liberal
  • Moderate
  • Christian Democrats
  • Sweden Democrats

Unexpectedly to me the polls have been tightening significantly just in the last month or so, even if the left bloc + Centre still enjoy a small ~3% lead and will likely win a majority imo. Betting websites are currently offering odds corresponding to about a 65% likelihood for this to happen. Even if they do win though the road forward is all but clear, mostly due to severe contrasts in ideology between the Centre and Left parties. The Centre Party, which ideologically lies to the centre-right, has put a red line against the Left Party in government, while the Left Party promises to vote against any government formation that does not include them.

In the end I expect the final government to be either the Social Democrats and the Greens tolerated by the Left and Centre, or even the Centre in government too, and tolerated by the Left. It's not the first time the Left have made these threats and then caved, and it won't be the last either - eventually I expect they will have to choose between supporting a government only leaning to the left or face a snap election and campaign period where they will be viewed as the instigators.

There is also the long shot of the Christian Democrats breaking ranks to form a government consisting of themselves, the Social Democrats, Greens and Centre, which would have to be one of the least bad outcomes for any right minded Swedes if the sitting government are losing the majority.

Some scattered thoughts:

  • Compared to the at times chaotic period of 2014 - 2022 when the Social Democrats led the government, this term has been refreshingly stable. Government formation was quicker and no motions of no confidence
  • Perhaps this is what voters have been considering as the election neared and polls tightened
  • The Social Democrats, the dominant force in Swedish politics for over a century, are probably going to get their worst result since universal suffrage, or at least come close to it.
  • Intense tactical voting from the Sweden Democrats and the Moderate Party seems to have saved the Liberals from being ejected out of parliament. At the beginning of August they were polling around 2% (the threshold is 4%)
  • Outside of tactical voting though, polling suggests smaller parties are gaining support across the board at the expense of the three larger parties (Social Democrats, Sweden Democrats and the Moderate Party)
  • The relentless growth of the Sweden Democrats has probably been stopped, perhaps even reversed a little after like 24 years/6 consecutive elections of improving vote shares

I probably would have more things to add but the live results are about to start dropping so I'll end it here. Please correct any mistakes you see and add your thoughts below!

EDIT: Exit polls are indicating a 4-5% lead for the opposition.

EDIT2: Now that enough locations have reported results the national broadcaster SVT unveiled the results of a projection model forecasting the final vote share and distribution of parliamentary seats. It indicates the government and opposition are separated by only a single seat in favor of the opposition.

EDIT3: Coming up on 50% of votes counted and the SVT projection is holding firm on the 174-175 seat projection, still favoring the opposition by the narrowest margin.

EDIT4: 80% votes counted now and the projection is holding up surprisingly well, moving very little as results have trickled in. Currently estimating 49.2% support for the opposition and 49.1% support for the government with the seat projection unchanged from the very beginning.

EDIT5: At 90% counted, I am going to bed. SVT is claiming "with 90% certainty" that the final seat distribution will indeed be 174-175 with the opposition parties winning the election by the narrowest possible parliamentary margin. Votes from abroad will be tallied on Wednesday, and even though traditionally they're considered to lean somewhat to the right SVT thinks there's not enough volume to shift the final outcome. Government negotiations and formation will be interesting to follow, hoping they don't go on until January (or even longer) like they did back in 2018-2019.

My sources pre-election were saying that this would come down to whether or not the Liberals (right-liberal in theory and practice) crossed the 4% threshold to get seats. So an outcome where L comfortably exceeded the threshold, but the right-wing coalition still fell short is surprising.

My perspective on this election is that it is a (rare) case of a coalition between the establishment right and right populists that didn't blow up harming both sides. (See for example my post about last year's Dutch elections). Instead the right-populists lost votes to the centre-right - even the Liberals will gain seats, despite tanking in the polls and a noisy minority of L supporters saying that forming a government relying on SD support was a betrayal of liberal principles. Although the narrative may well end up being "the voters punished the coalition" because they went from having just enough seats to govern to falling just short.

What happened? As a liberal elite, even a temporarily embarassed one, I obviously want this to be a case where the government was simply more competent than other right-populist coalitions because SD did not take cabinet seats. As far as I can see, this is roughly correct. You can make a lot of progress on crime and immigration by (a) wanting to and (b) being quietly competent without doing any of the flashy stuff that right-populist voters want to see, and the Swedish coalition did. This doesn't get you actual right-populist votes, but if you are able to take the credit it gets you the votes of people who were previously holding their nose and voting right-populist because the alternatives were so awful. (Even left-wing parties can do this, as we have seen in Denmark, and even in the UK although neither the right nor the left wants this widely known).

Final thought - this is probably going to come down to <0.25% of the vote between the left and right blocs. Nobody thinks that Sweden can't count an election to that level of accuracy, and an attempt by the losing side to attack the integrity of the election is not going to succeed.

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