Swedish election, 2018: Political Impasse, Löfven loses confidence vote

[Tender Branson]

I don't see what would compel the average SD-voter abandon the safe option to vote for an alternative (pun intended) that may not make it in and thus risk wasting their vote.

AfS are in favor of repatriation of unassimilated foreigners, that is far more radical than SD's policy.

Yes, I do not recall SD campaigning on deporting "hundreds of thousands. At least." I cannot think of another RRWP in Western Europe that has explicitly said the same, either.

While the FPÖ is not saying it, they are doing it right now:

Last year, there were a record 12.000 deportations here (under SPÖVP).

But with Kickl (FPÖ) recently speeding up the raids (as campaigned on), deportations this year are likely reaching 20.000-30.000

So, in the coming 5 years this would mean 100.000-150.000 removals from the country - assuming they keep the pace.

[Tender Branson]

What are the current, official positions/statements of the center-right parties on a possible coalition with the far-right SD ?

Together, these parties would get some 60% right now.

[Tender Branson]

I think everyone is officially opposed to it, but most people suspect M and KD would be open to it in practice. C is definitely totally opposed. L is somewhere in between that I think.

Thx.

Between such a coalition of M+SD+KD, a SAP+M "grand" coalition, a SAP+M+SD really grand coalition and a minority government of either left or right, how would you rate the likelihoods in % ?

[Tender Branson]

Why does YouGov continually show SD as being so much further ahead than any other poll?

I would usually say because it is an online poll and because of young people being strong Far-Right supporters. And because Sweden has high turnout, which means young people are turning out in big numbers as well, they are also very accurate (YouGov and Sentio, both online polls, were the most accurate in predicting the SD-share in 2014).

[Tender Branson]

It should be noted that the SD gained significantly in the last few months, going from 15% to around 20% and almost reaching the level of a year ago.

They will likely end up between 20-25%, putting them in a tough fight for 1st between the Social Democrats and the Moderates.

The Social Democrats are heading for an all-time low in this election, also because the Left Party is rather strong this time.

[Tender Branson]

The Social Democrats are dropping like a rock in Sweden right now ...

They are down 8% in the last half year, from around 30% to about 21-23% now.

I wouldn't rule out the Sweden Democrats winning 25-30% of the vote now, if they are acting as a big vacuum cleaner for former Social Democratic and Moderate voters.

[Tender Branson]

A gang-related drive-by shooting in Chicago Malmö left 3 people dead and 1 seriously injured.

I expect the Swedes to send a strong signal in September.

[Tender Branson]

YouGov poll for June

   

[Tender Branson]

The Sweden Democrats gain 16% compared with the 2014 election and 5.5% compared with the same poll from last month.

Lowest ever result for the Social Democrats, while the Greens and Christian Democrats would be kicked out of parliament ...

On the other hand, the Left Party also gains 3.5% compared with the 2014 election.

[Tender Branson]

Red-Green government approval rating:

15% approve
66% disapprove

Top-5 campaign issues for voters:

52% Healthcare
49% Immigration/refugee policy
32% crime
26% integration
25% schools/university/education

Voting intention by gender:

Men

36.4% Sweden Democrats
19.0% Social Democrats
15.7% Moderate Party
  7.8% Left Party
  4.7% Center Party

Women

25.2% Social Democrats
19.8% Sweden Democrats
19.0% Moderate Party
11.0% Left Party
  9.7% Center Party

[Tender Branson]

I know the election is roughly 2 months away... but i still think SD will end up between 20-25%... its whether or not they are the largest or second largest

I think there's a good enough chance they will slightly win the election, with some 25%.

The Social Democrats slightly behind at 24% or something and the Moderates down a bit more.

[Tender Branson]

Swedish precedent would suggest the government makes up lost ground in the coming weeks, so I think they'll take a narrow first place. That said I wonder if this will ironically hurt the chance of a left government - if people tempted to lend a vote to MP to ensure they don't fall sub-threshold instead park their vote in SAP to stop SD declaring a symbolic "victory", we could see more wasted votes on the Left.

Ehh ... you expect a government with a 15% approval rating to gain in the last two months ?

More like the opposite.

[Tender Branson]

Sex crimes increased 44-times in the past 42 years in Sweden ...

Development of reported sex attack cases in Sweden (1975-2017), according to the state BRA crime statistics:

1975: 500
1990: 1.200
2000: 3.500
2010: 7.000
2016: 20.300
2017: 22.000 (+8% in 1 year)

Among the 22.000 sex attack cases in 2017, there were a total of 7.230 rapes (+10% compared with 2016, when there were 6.567 rapes).

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-27/rape-case-surge-puts-focus-on-crime-as-swedish-election-looms

https://www.thelocal.se/20180118/reported-rapes-in-sweden-up-by-10-percent

[Tender Branson]

Massive wildfires all over Sweden right now ...

Temps have been around 30°C or higher for several weeks now (also in Finland and Russia) and even in the Arctic.

But it turns out that even though 70% of Sweden is covered with forests, they hardly have any planes to combat wildfires with water.

Hopefully Austria will send some water bombers to Sweden soon to help out.

[Tender Branson]

New YouGov poll has the traditional parties S and M imploding and reaching all-time-lows (and the Social Democrats coalition partners, the Greens, are still below the 4% threshold):



The S+Green government is very unpopular already and now even has to explain to voters why they are shoving billions of kronas down the throats of immigrants and trying to integrate them, while at the same time having purchased no (= zero) aircraft to combat the virulent wildfires in the country. There have been wildfires already in 2014, but the Red-Green government didn't buy anything in that regard.

It's better to spend the money on immigrants from Africa and the Middle-East of course ...

[Tender Branson]

The new Sentio poll still has the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD) ahead, but also shows strong gains for the far-left Left Party (V):

[Tender Branson]

Good to see that most of Center's virtual gains have evaporated. Also interesting - though not in a positive sense - that AfS could be around 1% only. This seems to be going nowhere.

Why is V gaining so much? Something with the fires?

AfS ... the Swedish version of our FLÖ-dwarfs (0.2% in the 2017 election vs. 26% for the FPÖ).

As for Vs strong performance in polls recently: I think it has to do with the massive unpopularity of the Red-Green government in Sweden.

Many of their disappointed voters from 2014 are now opting for the more radical fringes. See Austria in 2016 during the presidential election's first round.

[Tender Branson]

It's crazy that there is still such a huge difference between online and phone polling, I mean, someone is going to end up with egg on their face

I'm 80% sure it will be the telephone pollsters who will end up with egg on their face ...

The extreme SD will do well, the extreme Left will do well.

All the establishment+government parties will face an utter disaster.

[Tender Branson]

I'm currently learning Swedish ...

Jag heter Tender och jag är från Österrike. Jag talar fortfarande dåligt svenska. Det är tidigt.





That will add to my Standard-German skills (my native language is Pinzgauerisch), English skills and Italian skills.

[Tender Branson]

For the Sweden Democrats, the spread between phone pollsters (16-19%) and online pollsters (24-25) is pretty huge right now.

I wonder what this means in the end ...

[Tender Branson]

I'll start with the predictions for Sunday:

23.6% Social Democrats (-7.4%)
21.4% Sweden Democrats (+8.5%)
17.0% Moderates (-6.3%)
11.5% Left (+5.8%)
  9.0% Centre (+2.9%)
  5.5% Christian Democrats (+0.9%)
  5.4% Liberals (n.c.)
  4.5% Greens (-2.4%)
  1.1% Feminist Initiative (-2.0%)
  1.0% Others (n.c.)

Turnout: 84.9% (-0.9%)

[Tender Branson]

The eventual support for the SD is the hardest to predict, but I assume the following:

Usually, if the far-right party is bouncing around wildly in support in pre-election polls, it means they are having a really good election day result.

On the other hand, I do not expect the SD to do as well as the FPÖ in Austria (26%).

The polls have been quite accurate in Austria, the Netherlands and France last year - not so much in Italy though, where the support for Lega and M5S was underestimated.

Still, Sweden is closer to the Netherlands or France politically rather than Austria or Italy - so I guess they will do well and better than what the polls show, but not as well as the FPÖ.

21-22% looks like the most likely outcome, unless there's a hidden sentiment among voters like before the first round of the Austrian Presidential election, where the polls predicted 20-25% for Hofer (FPÖ), but he got 35%. Obviously, that was right after the migrant invasion of 2015. But Sweden also has its fair share of immigration-related problems, so a surprising win for the SD in the 25-28% range can also not be ruled out ...

[Tender Branson]

Turnout 88%

incredible

It was almost 86% in 2014, and turnout went up by a lot in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands compared to the previous election. I think the turnout "ceiling" in Sweden has almost been reached, meaning that any increase will probably be less big, but in the current international and domestic political climate, 88% turnout in Sweden does not seem like a very strange prediction to me. Denmark tends to have about the same turnout as Sweden and reached 87.2% in 2011, before the refugee crisis and the Trump era.

I'm not sure if turnout can still rise on Sunday relative to the already high 86% from 2014 ...

I think in the case of Sweden, it might have peaked and is likely to fall a bit.

Sweden has naturalized a lot of migrants recently, and they are not as likely to vote as real Swedes.

https://www.thelocal.se/20180831/how-sweden-hopes-to-get-its-foreign-born-residents-to-vote

It would be a nice surprise though to see 87% or 88% turnout.

[Tender Branson]

My updated prediction (tough race for 1st between S and SD):

22.6% Social Democrats (-8.4%)
22.4% Sweden Democrats (+9.5%)
17.5% Moderates (-5.8%)
11.0% Left (+5.3%)
  9.3% Centre (+3.2%)
  5.5% Christian Democrats (+0.9%)
  5.4% Liberals (n.c.)
  4.2% Greens (-2.7%)
  1.1% Feminist Initiative (-2.0%)
  1.0% Others (n.c.)

Turnout: 85.2% (-0.6%)

[Tender Branson]

Prediction:

Social Democratic: 23.0%
Sweden Democrats: 19.5%
Moderate: 16.0%
Left: 11.0%
Centre: 8.0%
Liberals: 6.0%
Christian Democrats: 6.0%
Green: 5.5%

Coalition: Social Democratic-Green (Confidence & Supply: Left)

What's with the remaining 5% ?

Also: LOL at the continuation of Red-Green.