Muslim voters in Sweden remain heavily concentrated on the political left, although the Sweden Democrats attract considerably more support among Muslim voters than the other parties in the governing coalition, according to polling and election research.
Previously unpublished figures from Novus, seen by Fokus magazine, show that 61.6% of respondents who identified as Muslim supported the Social Democrats, while 18.7% backed the Left Party. The Green Party received 4.9%, meaning the three left-wing parties together accounted for 85% of Muslim respondents’ preferences.
By contrast, the governing Moderates received just 2.1%, while the Christian Democrats and Liberals received 1.5% and 0.2%, respectively. The three parties together attracted 3.8%.
The Sweden Democrats stand out on the right, with 10.4% support among Muslim respondents—more than twice the combined support for the other three government parties.
The figures broadly reflect a longstanding pattern. A 2021 study by the University of Gothenburg found that 58.7% of self-identified Muslims supported the Social Democrats and 8.3% the Left Party. Among voters born outside Europe, the 2022 election produced a similar pattern, with 43% voting Social Democrat and 19% for the Left Party.
Left parties have long maintained a stronger physical presence in immigrant-dense neighborhoods, building networks through associations and local organizers. Campaigns increasingly appear in Arabic and other languages, sometimes with tailored messages on family reunification, inclusion, and opposition to ‘Islamophobia.’ Individual candidates have gone further, presenting themselves as ‘one of you’ and promising faster asylum and citizenship processes.
Political scientist Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson noted that immigrant voters are not uniformly supportive of high immigration. Crime and insecurity in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods can instead make some receptive to the Sweden Democrats’ tougher approach to migration and criminal justice.
The size of the Muslim electorate is difficult to quantify because Sweden does not register religious affiliation in its population statistics.
