Swedish Polls Predict Dead-Heat Election

With the Swedish election taking place on Sunday, the last opinion polls point to a statistical dead heat between the left-leaning coalition led by the social democrats, and the right-of-center coalition. State broadcaster SVT, together with the Novus opinion-poll company, reported a minuscule 0.3 percentage point lead for the left-leaning coalition. Of the 1,500 individuals polled, 49.7% would vote Left. The votes breakdown is as follows:

• The social democrats, 30.3%;
• The Left party, i.e., the former communists, 7.8%;
• The center party, 7.1%; and
• The environmental party, 4.5%.

The right-of-center coalition polled at 49.4%, distributed as follows among its four parties:

• The Swedish democrats, 21.2%;
• The moderates, 17.1%;
• The Christian democrats, 5.9%; and
• The liberals, 5.2%.

If this were the outcome of the election, the social-democrat led coalition would gather 175 seats of the 349 in the Riksdag, the Swedish parliament. This would allow the incumbent prime minister, social democrat Magdalena Andersson, to continue to govern with the smallest possible parliamentary margin.

Another major opinion poll, performed by Demoskop and published by the daily newspaper Aftonbladet, reports a similarly tight margin. The left-leaning coalition polled at 49.9%:

• The social democrats, 29.2%;
• The Left party, i.e., the former communists, 8.3%;
• The center party, 8.1%; and
• The environmental party, 4.3%.

The right-of-center coalition got the same share as in the Novus poll, with its 49.4% distributing as follows:

• The Swedish democrats, 20.5%;
• The moderates, 18.3%;
• The Christian democrats, 5.3%; and
• The liberals, 5.3%.

The European Conservative will be covering the election live on Twitter.