Denmark Parliamentary Election - June 18, 2015

[politicus]

New Voxmeter poll has Red Bloc on 47,4 vs. 52,2 to Blue Bloc and 0,4% Others. Seat distribution 93-82.

SD is back on the 2011 result with 24,8, but the Red  Greens down to 7,5%. Only 0,8%above their 2011 result.

Liberals above 25% and DPP back on 17%+, so it looks like Gallup was an outlier (they also had SPP very low).

The Alternative 1,5
Red Greeens 7,5
SPP 7,0
SD 24,8
Social Liberals 6,6

Conservatives 4,1
Liberal Alliance 4,9
Liberals 25,1
DPP 17,7
Christian Democrats 0,4

Others 0,4

[politicus]

Also, anyone from Denmark know how are voting Catholics in Denmark I know they are non-significant group but maybe there is some data.

I haven't seen any numbers, but I have a pretty good network in the Catholic community through my dads family and working on a Jesuit high school.

My impression (which may have a Copenhagen bias) is:

Danish Catholics falls in several distinct groups:

Big groups:

Descendants of German immigrans and Danish converts: Affluent, well-educated, liberal on religion and anti-Vatican. Dominates the church bureaucracy. Mostly moderate centre-right voters - traditionally many Conservatives.

Desendants of Polish immigrants: More working class and more culturally conservative. Pro-Vatican. Traditionally voted SD like most immigrant groups in Denmark, but increasingly vote Liberal and DPP like other blue collar groups.


Smaller groups:

Vietnamese: More well-educated and well-integrated than most - moderate centre-right - many Liberals.

Filipinos: Mostly women coming by marriage, no idea, but likely big parties: SD and Liberals.

Africans: Mostly SD (the disadvantaged immigrant default option). Some Liberals if small business owners.

[Simfan34]

"Anti-Vatican"?

[Diouf]

The pre-election campaign reaches new heights...



The increasingly desperate Conservatives are now launching a campaign against what they call "NaziIslamism". Fuelled by the return of Naser Khader from the Hudson Institute, the party has again focused on his favourite topic, the fight against Islamism. Quotes from an article written by Khader and party leader Søren Pape Poulsen: "By comparing the two ideologies, people will more easily understand what we are dealing with. That's why we call it NaziIslamism. A dangerous inner enemy which must be defeated and eliminated". "We have to eliminate the root causes behind the spread of the ideology, and fight Islamism with weapons here and now [in Syria and Iraq]." The only real solution given to fight Islamism is Denmark is opposition to a few well-known "hatefull preachers" in a few specific mosques.

[politicus]

"Anti-Vatican"?

Well, deeply sceptical of Vatican influence on the Danish Catholic church and trying to distance themselves from church policies on especially social issues.

Our current Bishop is the son of Polish farmhands and staunchly conservative. They are in opposition to him and his line.

Socially liberal, upper middle class "Germans"/Danes vs. socially conservative working class Poles is the main dividing line among Danish Catholics.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

I was always thinking that statement: "Poland will last bastion of Catholicism in Western Europe' is naive and exaggerated but I am a little bit changing my mind. Priests will be our "trade good", lol.

Thank you for the answer.

[politicus]

"We have to eliminate the root causes behind the spread of the ideology, and fight Islamism with weapons here and now [in Syria and Iraq]." 

Given their remarks about the Danish Army being reduced to a militia and Christianity being the superior religion we should just send them to Syria right away - they are in clearly in need of Christian militias down there.

[Gustaf]

Conservatives here is consistently referring to Konservative Folkeparti right?

That's a bananas campaign.

[Gustaf]

This has probably been discussed before, but how come the Christian Democrats are so weak in Denmark compared to other Nordic countries?

Some of the answers are in my write-up in the beginning of the thread.

Otherwise:

1) Small Bible Belt/few Evangelicals giving them a very small base.

2) Evangelicals being unpopular in Denmark - many stereotypes associated with the main group Inner Mission (often the bad guys in fiction and popular culture).

3) Schizophrenic party: Having moderate left wing positions on most issues, but allying with the centre-right to not frighten their core supporters in the Liberal heartland = not getting much done and not being able to reach out to potential supporters in Eastern Denmark (see also the Kornbek-Videbæk feud -described in the second post in thread). Was in an SD led government 1993-94, but has otherwise refused to be the classical swing party that could support either side - making them irrelevant. Being a very small centrist party firmly anchored on the right is not a viable position.

4) Being anti-free abortion is seen as an extremist position in Denmark. Even if the party has said it is not on the practical political agenda, and that they are working to reduce abortion numbers by social policies and information etc., many potential supporters wont vote for the party because of this.

5) Danish popular Lutheran culture is split between (the remnants of) the two old laymen movements from the 19th century - Grundtvigians and Inner Mission with the former as the big one. KD is associated with Inner Mission, which has blocked any success among the free school/folk high school Grundtvigian crowd, who are either Liberals, Social Liberals or SPP. I think a culturally Christian party with Grundtvigian roots and profile would have been more successfull (even if the actual content of the Grundtvigian tradition in the modern world is hard to define). The old Grundtvigian motto "Human first and Christian then" would have been a good starting point - and fits most of the party's actual policies

tl;dr (and simplified): The liberal tradition is stronger than the conservative in Danish Lutheranism.

Christian Democrats founded in the 70s as a protest against free porn and legal abortion (legalized by a Conservative Minster of Justice..). Forever torn between its core supporters from pietistic Inner Mission in the "Bible Belt" in Western Jutland (even in the heart of this so called Bible Belt only 5-7% are fundis) and liberal Christian greenies in the Big Smoke. Its core constituents sees themselves as solidly centre-right despite having views on welfare, environmental issues, refugees and aid to the Third World much more in line with the left, hence demanding the party always supports a Liberal government and eliminating any chance of real influence - driving more tactically minded types to despair. Copenhagen based chairman Bodil Kornbek and West Jutlandic Tv station manager Tove Videbæk tore the party apart with un-Christian vengeance. Now its led by a Conservative renegade with a DUI conviction and permanently under the threshold (while Videbæk ended up with the Conservatives and Kornbek in the Social Democrats).

(the DUI guy has since left them and is in a Danish version of the Norwegian Senterpartiet)

Thanks. I guess the more fundamental question is then why the evangelical movement wasn't more successful in Denmark to begin with.

[Diouf]

Conservatives here is consistently referring to Konservative Folkeparti right?

That's a bananas campaign.

Yes

It seems like they are now trying to brand themselves of some sort of protest party. They have launched a whole "Stop" theme. Stop rule tyranny, stop the thief, stop the land tax etc

I hope this will be their campaign song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JD6ejmlpa8

[politicus]

It seems like they are now trying to brand themselves of some sort of protest party. They have launched a whole "Stop" theme. Stop rule tyranny, stop the thief, stop the land tax etc

I hope this will be their campaign song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JD6ejmlpa8

I prefer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnn7Hs6aHEM

Pape is a country boy after all.

[politicus]

The blue collar trade unions in LO will not support SD directly, but in coordination with the non-academic white collar unions in FTF run their own 8 mio. kroner campaign focusing  on job creation, education, wage dumping and work environment.

All SD themes, but also things DPP focus on (especially wage dumping and job creation), and better education and job creation as general themes are of course something all parties claim to be interested in, so not necessarily a pro-Red Bloc campaign.

LO chairman Harald Børsting says LO will have to work with whatever government wins and try to influence core issues. Most of LOs members vote DPP or Liberal nowadays, and the government has been a disappointment for the unions, so a logical move.

[politicus]

Berlingske Barometer has a balanced poll average and individual polls - incl. seat distribution for the 175 Danish seats.

http://www.politiko.dk/barometeret

[Gustaf]

Does anyone have an exit poll from the last election or something like that which breaks down demographics in Danish politics? Gender, occupation, etc.

[politicus]

Does anyone have an exit poll from the last election or something like that which breaks down demographics in Danish politics? Gender, occupation, etc.

Diouf is your best bid. Try PMing him. I think his PMs are sent to his mail.

On that theme - in the last election small town Gylling in central Eastern Jutland (near Odder, which is south of Århus) was closest to the national average and wealthy Rungsted north of Copenhagen was furthest from it. Gyllings variation from the national average was a mere 0,68%. The average national divergence was 3,12 percentage point. Small town Eastern Jutland is the bellwhether area.



Rungsted had a record turnout of 95,2%. Only 30 votes for the Red Greens = 1%, national average was 6,7%, while 83,7% voted  the centre-right. Liberals got 46,6% (twice the average) and Conservatives 16,2% (4,9% national average). No numbers for LA in he article I saw, but likely also three times the national average.

I believe Nakskov on Westen Lolland was the most "red".

[politicus]

SD above 25% in new Norstat poll, but their allies are weak. Like Galllup they have DPP high and the Liberals low. Blue Bloc has 51,5% (+ KD) and leads 93-82. Red Bloc on 45,9%. KD + Alternativet + Others = 2,6% wasted votes.

Socialdemokraterne 25,5

Dansk Folkeparti 21,1

Venstre 20,9

Enhedslisten 8,6

SF 6,1

Radikale Venstre 5,7

Liberal Alliance 5,3

Konservative 4,2

Alternativet 1,0

Others 0,9

Kristendemokraterne 0,7

[politicus]

The difference for the other parties is not out of the ordinary, but this was published the same day as the Voxmeter poll that had DPP on 17,7% and Liberals on 25,1%...

[politicus]

Comparing the 2011 result with the Norstat poll:

2011/Norstat

SD 24,8% Norstat 25,5%
Social Liberals 9,5% Norstat 5,7%
United Left 15,9% Norstat 14,7% (+1,0% to Alternativet)
DPP 12,3% Norstat 21,1%
Liberals 26,7% Norstat 20,9%
Low Tax Brigade (Conservatives + LA) 9,9% Norstat 9,5%
KD 0,8% Norstat 0,7%

SD + United Left only lose 0,5% compared to 2011, but the Social Liberals lose almost 4%. SD needs to gain a lot more of the votes SocLib lose - or get votes from DPP, but the DPP gain likely mostly comes from the Liberals, so that is hard.

On the other side the Low Tax Brigade + KD are on 2011 level, the Liberals lose almost 6%, but DPP gain almost 9%. So DPP win more than the Liberals lose and the rest is a wash.

In the big picture only three parties really move DPP, the Liberals and the Social Liberals. The two old Liberal parties are the losers (unless you believe Voxmeter ) DPP are the winners.

[politicus]

SD needs to be sure whether the Liberals or DPP are their main opponents (if the Liberals really are at around 20% they are unlikely to go much lower) - and they need polls steadily showing 47%+ for Red Bloc, so I think they will wait to after the May1/May 5 celebrations to evaluate the situation now.

They also needs to decide whether they want to crush the Alternative or help them above the threshold. 1,5%+ and they will get in on tactical votes, 0,5% and they are mostly irrelevant. 1,0-1,4% is the tricky spot for SD and it looks like they may be just there now.

[politicus]

One interesting aspect is that if the Norstat poll became the result you would have the Eurosceptic part of Blue Bloc (DPP + LA) on 26,4% and the Europhile (Lib + Con) on 25,1%.

I think you would need to get something like 30-20 for the EU policy to change for real and LA is not as Eurosceptic as DPP, but still the balance will change.

[politicus]

Regarding Radikale it is worth remembering that 5-6% is their modern (post-70s) standard level.



They just had an unusually good election last time (economic responsibility during the crisis), like they also had in 2005 (student/bourgeois protest votes against the governments "inhumane" policies), and their 2011 leader Margrethe Vestager has gone to Brussels and left uncharismatic Morten Østergaard in charge.

It was just expected that they would stabilize on around 7%, not revert all the way back to the post-1970 standard. But as you can see they have very stable support level, unless they happen to catch media attention and become "radicool" (2005 expression) for some reason.

[Diouf]

Does anyone have an exit poll from the last election or something like that which breaks down demographics in Danish politics? Gender, occupation, etc.

I'm not sure that there are any demographic data set that can be explored free of charge. For a in-depth analysis of the 2011 election, there is the (Danish) book Krisevalg - Økonomien og folketingsvalget 2011.

The best bet is probably altinget.dk otherwise, but most of their (great) stuff is behind a paywall. I can upload a few of the most important tables.

Age and gender:
http://tinypic.com/r/otom5f/8

Workers, lower end salaried employees (without management responsibility and higher education), higher end salaried employees (with management responsibility and/or higher education). Salaried employees would be around the same as white-collar
http://tinypic.com/r/egxonc/8

Self-employed in agriculture, self-employed in city trades, students
http://tinypic.com/r/2mnevk8/8

Pensioners, unemployed
http://tinypic.com/r/2myq4om/8

Notice N is the number of respondents. For one or two of the table, this number is very low so the figure is probably only from one subsamble.

EDIT: Can't get the picture function to work, so will just write the links.

[politicus]

Thanks Diouf. Here they are:

Age and gender:


Occupation (same order as Dioufs links):







@Diouf: The trick is to click "view raw image".

[politicus]

Altinget has asked parliamentary candidates about labour market issues and the answers illustrate that DPP doesn't agree much with the rest of Blue Bloc:

1) "Unemployment benefits for uninsured people should be lowered in order to make it more attractive to work"

DPP:

Against: 47%
Agree 35%
Neither 18%

Other "Blues"

Agree 91%
Disagree 3%
Neither 6%


2) "It should be easier to regain access to insurance based unemployment benefits"

DPP

Agree 89%
Disagree 1%
Neither 10%

Other "Blues"

Agree 7%
Disagree 89%
Neither 4%

"Corporations should be liable to chain responsibility" (= held accountable for breach of wage and employment conditions among their subcontractors)

DPP

Agree 95%
Disagree 4%
Neither 1%

Other "Blues"

Agree 12%
Disagree 82%
Neither 7%

http://www.altinget.dk/artikel/139479-df-i-opposition-til-blaa-arbejdsmarkedspolitik
I rephrased the questions slightly to make them easier to understand (hopefully..).

[politicus]

Most accurate final prognosis in 2011:

1. Gallup
2. Voxmeter
3. Epinion
4. Norstat
5. Megafon
6. Green
7. Rambøll