Danish Parliamentary Elections 2026: Behind the Results and the Advance of the Red-Green Alliance

Danish Parliamentary Elections 2026: Behind the Results and the Red-Green Alliance s Gains
By: Åge Skovrind


As expected, the election dealt a heavy blow to the SVM coalition government. All three governing parties lost ground — most notably the Social Democrats, who recorded their worst result since 1903. Yet only a portion of their voters moved to the left.

Key Election Results
All three parties in the outgoing government lost seats — the same government that had only barely secured a majority in 2022. The Social Democrats recorded their worst electoral performance since 1903. On the left, the Socialist People s Party (SF) made solid gains, while on the right, the Danish People s Party achieved very substantial gains.
The result was a highly fragmented Folketing, with nine of the twelve parties holding between ten and twenty seats each. As countless commentators have repeated since the election, forming a new government majority will require an unusually broad coalition.

The Red-Green Alliance s Gains
The Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten) can take satisfaction in winning two additional seats in the Folketing. With 44,585 additional votes and two more seats, the party exits the election in a stronger position. This means more resources in parliament and more public funding for the national organisation, which can be used to build local branches and networks and run stronger campaigns. There is no question about that.
One can also, as Pelle Dragsted has done on several occasions, point to the fact that the left to the left of the Social Democrats has never been larger. With SF, the Red-Green Alliance and the Alternative holding 36 seats combined, that is an undeniable fact. Most of those seats belong to SF, which gained five and now holds twenty. The opportunities to use this collective strength to raise joint demands and launch coordinated campaign initiatives must naturally be exploited to the fullest.

Disappointed Social Democrat Voters
But to complete the full picture, it must be noted that the Social Democrats are now scraping the bottom after losing 12 seats and recording support of only 21.8 percent. The party received nearly 200,000 fewer votes than in 2022. Many Social Democrat voters have, understandably, been deeply disappointed by Mette Frederiksen s collaboration with the right and the policies that resulted from the partnership with Venstre and the Moderates — the abolition of the Great Prayer Day holiday, tax cuts for the wealthy, the cash benefit reform, and so on. What is troubling is that a considerable number of Social Democrat voters have moved primarily to the Danish People s Party rather than to the left.
Looking at the voter flow analyses conducted by Epinion for DR, the Social Democrats lost 33 percent of their 2022 voters by 2026, with 13 percent going to SF, 2 percent to the Red-Green Alliance, and just one percent to the Alternative. The remainder — more than half — moved to the right. Taken as a whole, the election result can be read as a movement away from the centre toward both the left (primarily SF) and the right — especially the far right in the form of the Danish People s Party, which campaigned for cheaper petrol and a net emigration of Muslims.
The Social Democrats loss of 20 seats means that the so-called red bloc now holds three fewer seats than after the last election. This count includes the Social Liberal Party s 10 seats (three more than last time), even though that party pursues a liberal economic policy. Against this backdrop, it is more than difficult to imagine that the current government negotiations will result in a government more progressive than the previous one.

A Closer Look at the Red-Green Alliance s Advance
Two additional seats and an increase from 5.1 percent in 2022 to 6.3 percent now represents progress, but not substantial progress by several measures. It must be remembered that this advance is measured against 2022, when the Red-Green Alliance lost four seats — dropping from 13 to 9. The party has therefore not yet returned to its former strength. Nor did the result meet the party s own target of a 7 percent vote share.
Voter flow analyses reveal where the Red-Green Alliance drew many of its new votes. They show that 25 percent of those who left the Alternative moved to the Red-Green Alliance. Among former voters of Frie Grønne — which did not stand in this election — the figure is as high as 46 percent. Calculating these figures against Frie Grønne s 0.9 percent and the Alternative s decline of 0.7 percentage points, this accounts for more than half of the Red-Green Alliance s advance. First-time voters are also likely to have contributed to the result.
The final opinion polls before the election had looked promising. On 20 and 22 March, Voxmeter and Epinion gave the Red-Green Alliance 6.8 and 7.9 percent respectively — among the best figures recorded throughout the campaign. Yet once again, the actual result fell short of the polls predictions, which is undoubtedly linked to the fact that the Red-Green Alliance consistently scores poorly among undecided voters. Put differently, not many of those who have yet to make up their minds end up choosing the Red-Green Alliance.
It is also worth noting that some of the Red-Green Alliance s regular voters cast their ballot for the Alternative in order to help that party clear the threshold. Had there been no need for that tactical voting, the advance would likely have been larger than it was.
There were gains in all constituencies except Aarhus East, but the Red-Green Alliance remains primarily a capital-region party. The advance of 1.2 percentage points was driven above all by strong results in Copenhagen and the Copenhagen suburbs. In many parts of the country the advance was well below one percentage point, while in strongholds such as Bispebjerg and Nørrebro it reached as high as 5.9 and 5.2 points. In other words, the party advanced most where it was already strongest.
For older voters, parts of the Red-Green Alliance s campaign offered a nostalgic encounter with advertising of a bygone era, as the usual graphic style was abandoned in favour of text, colours and images evoking the 1950s. Whether this was a deliberate message to "the Danes" that the Red-Green Alliance wants a return to the old Denmark of security and stability — from the days when Valo washed whiter than white and Social Democracy governed more red than blue — or whether the campaign leadership simply believed it worked better, is unclear. Either way, it is unlikely to have had much impact on the actual result, though it did cause considerable puzzlement among party activists.

Why Not More Votes?
The Red-Green Alliance has only succeeded to a very limited degree in capitalising on dissatisfaction with the Social Democrats rightward drift. The voter flow figures point clearly to the fact that almost none of the Social Democrats who defected placed their vote with Ø. The Red-Green Alliance s new voters came overwhelmingly from the parties closest to it — including SF (7 percent of whose voters came over) and first-time voters.
For many people, SF — not the Red-Green Alliance — is undoubtedly seen as the most obvious choice for those who want a government in which Mette Frederiksen "looks to the left." SF presents itself as the realistic alternative, while many perceive the Red-Green Alliance as a less certain bet — and not as "our guarantee of a red government," as the party s campaign materials put it somewhat cryptically. After all, who is "we," when and why does the Red-Green Alliance consider a government (led by Mette Frederiksen) to be "red," and what exactly does the Red-Green Alliance s guarantee consist of?
One might ask whether this is simply the nature of the political landscape, or whether a different campaign profile could have won more votes. That is, by its very nature, pure speculation. It might equally have led to fewer votes. A more fundamental question is, of course, whether the pursuit of votes alone should define a party s campaign messaging.
In the analysis that follows, I draw on the Red-Green Alliance s participation in a number of television debates and on the campaign materials distributed by the national office — not on whatever individual candidates may have said at voter meetings, or on locally produced advertisements and leaflets.

"A Denmark You Can Afford"
The Red-Green Alliance chose to centre its campaign on the slogan "a Denmark you can afford." Setting aside the debate about the reference to "Denmark" and "the Danes," this was a reasonable and comprehensible headline for an election campaign in the current climate of rising prices and growing inequality. It was given concrete expression through demands for cheaper public transport, a reduced VAT rate on food — especially fruit and vegetables — rent caps, and free dental care and prescription medicine. These are demands that speak to the everyday lives of ordinary people and are natural for a party seeking broad popular support, particularly among those with the least.
Yet none of these demands broke through in any significant way. The most immediate demand — lower food prices — was difficult to stand out on, given that a broad agreement to reduce VAT already existed, with differences only in the details of implementation. The demand for cheaper public transport was overshadowed during the campaign by what many perceived as the most pressing transport cost issue — the sharp rise in diesel and petrol prices following the US strike on Iran.
The proposal for a wealth tax on the richest did receive favourable coverage, but once the Social Democrats proposed something similar in a different form, the Red-Green Alliance s version faded into the background. The hysterical scare campaign from business circles and the liberal parties was directed primarily at the Social Democratic proposal.

Drinking Water and a "Pig Election"
A campaign focused on combating inequality and making life more affordable for the "ordinary Dane" was not wrong — but perhaps it is simply difficult for the Red-Green Alliance to distinguish itself from SF and "Red Mette" on a welfare agenda. What is particularly striking is that the necessary green transition of society was not more prominent. The apparent explanation is that because voters already see the Red-Green Alliance as the greenest of all parties, that agenda could be pushed to the background.
As it turned out, the campaign came close to making pig farming and drinking water the defining issues of the election — largely thanks to the effective work of a number of grassroots organisations.
The Red-Green Alliance naturally backed the Alliance for a Pig Election, formed at the large stop-pig-farming rally at Christiansborg on 3 March, but it was Zenia Stampe and the Social Liberal Party who emerged as the political frontrunners in turning the election into a "pig election." That may partly explain their strong result.
In early March, the Red-Green Alliance stood alongside the Alternative, SF and the Social Liberals behind a proposal to ban pesticide use around groundwater protection zones, which was well received in the media. But here too, it was the other parties that were out in front on this agenda — and even the Social Democrats ended up advocating for a pesticide ban.
In several television debates, the media chose to probe the Red-Green Alliance on immigration and defence policy. But these were not topics the party itself chose to raise. International affairs were equally absent from the campaign — for instance with regard to the United States or Palestinian rights and the government s support for Israel. Rearmament and the many billions it costs were also missing, perhaps because the Red-Green Alliance in practice does not differ much from the policy being pursued on this issue.

Challenging the System
The grassroots campaign against the pig industry is a fine illustration of how popular movements can create political pressure, influence election outcomes and thereby — at best — bring about societal change. But in general, in recent years we have not seen large popular movements, with the solidarity movement with Palestine standing as an important exception.
Shifting the balance of power runs deeper than slogans in an election campaign. If a majority of the population is to support a social and green agenda — including the ruptures that will inevitably be required — it has far more to do with culture in the broadest sense (the idea that everyone is the architect of their own fortune) and with strengthening popular movements, including the trade union movement.
That said, there is reason to ask whether a party like the Red-Green Alliance should not also use an election campaign to distinguish itself with demands that point beyond redistribution within the existing system — demands that contain elements of systemic critique, a vision for the future, an international perspective and value-based politics.
This could be pursued on the basis of the good demands the Red-Green Alliance actually raised. A rent cap is also an attack on capitalist market control. Control over food prices could be given concrete form beyond merely a VAT reduction, which risks vanishing as extra profit if there is no accompanying mechanism for oversight.
And most obviously of all, a break with capitalist market mechanisms is necessary for the green transition — with everything that entails in terms of electrification, oil extraction, energy and resource consumption, carbon accounting, and the mantra of perpetual growth.
To repeat: no one can know whether different areas of focus or a more systemically critical profile would have led to a better electoral result. But the discussion has now been opened as a contribution to the evaluation of the campaign taking place in party branches ahead of the coming annual congress on 23–24 May.

https://socinf.dk/ft-valg-2026-bag-om-resultatet-og-enhedslistens-fremgang/

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