DENMARK - 5 June 2019 election

[Diouf]

Average of polls from Gallup, Megafon, Epinion, Norstat, YouGov and Voxmeter in the first days of the campaign.

Social Democrats 26.6% 48 seats
Social Liberals 7.2% 13 seats
Conservatives 4.6% 8 seats
New Right 2.9% 5 seats
Klaus Riskær Pedersen 0.6% 0 seats
SPP 7.4% 13 seats
Liberal Alliance 3.8% 7 seats
Christian Democrats 1.1% 0 seats
DPP 12.0% 21 seats
Tough Line 3.0% 5 seats
Liberals 18.2% 33 seats
Red-Green Alliance 9.0% 16 seats
Alternative 3.4% 6 seats

So overall 46.1% and 79 seats for centre-right to far right (although it doesn't sound like New Right and Tough Line could support Løkke as PM), while centre-left to far left is on 53.6% and 96 seats. 

[Former President tack50]

Yikes, so the borderline fascists will actually make it?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Are Tough Line against non-Muslim immigrants? Do they want to repatriate all non-ethnic Danes?

[Diouf]

Yikes, so the borderline fascists will actually make it?

Seems fairly likely at the moment. They are above the threshold in 5 of the 6 polls. It is still early days, and the party is very recent on the ballot. They have received a high degree of attention in the first days. As the pic shows, the party was 4th most mentioned in articles and Rasmus Paludan 3rd most mentioned party leader. If that attention fizzles out, the party might fall, but it doesn't look like happening right now. Paludan's aggressive language and attacks draws attention, and many of his opponents feel called to express how much they dislike him. Also he has been quite good in releasing three somewhat notable candidates one by one, so that he gets more attention each time. They are "artist" Uwe Max Jensen, who is mostly known for his fondness of using his pee and excrements in his own artworks or to "rearrange" other's artworks. In 2016, he received a sentence of 30 days for assault against two museum employees, who tried to stop him from peeing on an artwork in a museum in Aalborg. Professor in developmental psychology, Helmut Nyborg, who is known for his controversial theories about IQ, with theories about a strong degree of inheritance intelligence, and that there are generel intelligence differences between groups (men more intelligent than women, white more than intelligent than blacks etc.). Finally, catholic theologian Iben Thranholm has also been revealed as a candidate. She has been a commentator in a mainstream newspaper, but she is also known for strong pro-Russian views and following conspiracy theories (Clinton is a satanist, atheists burned down Notre Dame etc.).

[Diouf]

Are Tough Line against non-Muslim immigrants? Do they want to repatriate all non-ethnic Danes?

The party states that only Danes should live in Denmark. Their definition of Danes are persons, who "were ethnically Danes by birth or adopted infants", have Danish heritage and Danish as first language, have only had Danish citizenship and embraces Danish culture. Danish heritage and ethnicity is not defined in the programme, but in a TV interview he said that the limit would likely be at least two Danish grandparents (which must mean by citizenship).
They then define exceptions. Tourists and highly qualified labour can be granted temporary stay. Finally, spouses with a Western European background can be allowed to stay permanently in Denmark (but will have to pay to for use of the public sector).

[xelas81]

Are Tough Line against non-Muslim immigrants? Do they want to repatriate all non-ethnic Danes?

The party states that only Danes should live in Denmark. Their definition of Danes are persons, who "were ethnically Danes by birth or adopted infants", have Danish heritage and Danish as first language, have only had Danish citizenship and embraces Danish culture. Danish heritage and ethnicity is not defined in the programme, but in a TV interview he said that the limit would likely be at least two Danish grandparents (which must mean by citizenship).
They then define exceptions. Tourists and highly qualified labour can be granted temporary stay. Finally, spouses with a Western European background can be allowed to stay permanently in Denmark (but will have to pay to for use of the public sector).

What is their stance on Greenland and Greenlanders?

[Diouf]

What is their stance on Greenland and Greenlanders?

There is nothing on their web page nor can I find any comments from Paludan, so I don't really know. And it is not really a topic that gets a lot of exposure in the campaign, so I don't know if we will find out soon.

[Diouf]

Poling from Bornholm multi-member constituency. The constituency only has two constituency seats. Social Democrats and Liberals normally win a seat each; the last time it was different was in 1973 when the Progress Party beat the Liberals to the second seat. The constituency seats are distributed by standard D'Hondt (with divisors 1, 2, 3 etc.), so if the Social Democrats are twice as big as the 2nd place finisher, they will win both seats. And they are not far from it here. With the Liberals on 19.8%, this means getting 39.6%. They are on 37.9% in this poll.
In 2015, DPP was only 0.4% behind Liberals, but like in the rest of Denmark, they are a lot down here (and without New Right and Tough Line getting many votes).

[Famous Mortimer]

What's the orientation of the Conservative People's Party at this point? New Right is an anti-immigration breakaway, right? So the rump Conservative People's Party is less anti-immigration, is that correct?

Also, remind me of the difference between the Social Liberals, the Alternative, and the Liberal Alliance again?

Finally, I assume all the immigrant skeptic/assimilationist elements in the Socialist People's Party have been forced out?

Might be worth it just to do a post summing up all the parties.

[DavidB.]

What's the orientation of the Conservative People's Party at this point? New Right is an anti-immigration breakaway, right? So the rump Conservative People's Party is less anti-immigration, is that correct?

Also, remind me of the difference between the Social Liberals, the Alternative, and the Liberal Alliance again?

Finally, I assume all the immigrant skeptic/assimilationist elements in the Socialist People's Party have been forced out?

Might be worth it just to do a post summing up all the parties.

The Conservatives are positioned to the right of Venstre and have an orientation towards law and order/defense and these sort of issues. They're the party for older upper-middle class people, mostly in and around Copenhagen (as opposed to Venstre, who have a rural/agricultural Jutland wing and a pro-business wing). Younger people with a similar socio-economic background to Conservative voters tend to opt for the Liberal Alliance.

The Social Liberals are your standard pro-immigration, neoliberal, Eurofederalist centrist party, still aligned with the left-wing Red bloc but purely economically more aligned with the right. They also steered the previous Red bloc government (2011-2015) in a pretty neoliberal direction. The Alternative is a green party for young people and attracts students as well as immigrants and the 'creative' classes, as they call them. They're also part of the left-wing Red bloc.

The Liberal Alliance is part of the right-wing Blue bloc and calls itself classical liberal, afaik - it's mostly oriented towards lowering taxes for people with high incomes (at which they have failed in the current government due to DPP influence, which is why they're tanking in the polls), moderately/softly euroskeptical and largely in sync with the Danish center-right consensus when it comes to immigration.

Immigration is not an issue the Socialist People's Party likes to prioritize, but generally they're softer than the Social Democrats but not as soft as the Alternative.

[Diouf]

The Christian Democrat leader Stig Grenov has gone on leave due to stress for the rest of the campaign. Therefore 26-year old deputy leader Isabella Arendt takes over as leader during the campaign. She impressed in the TV2 debate, and has already received more attention than Grenov in the campaign. It is still a difficult battle for the party, but this might give them a little more hope.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Given the Social Democrat's rightward shift on migration, will ethnic voters/"ghetto" residents still vote for them, or will they either defect or not bother voting? (None of the other parties seem like ideal outfits for that niche). Heck, could Denmark ever see a DENK style formation, given the low threshold and persistent ethnic strife?

[Diouf]

Given the Social Democrat's rightward shift on migration, will ethnic voters/"ghetto" residents still vote for them, or will they either defect or not bother voting? (None of the other parties seem like ideal outfits for that niche). Heck, could Denmark ever see a DENK style formation, given the low threshold and persistent ethnic strife?

It will be interesting to see. I haven't been able to find any polling since their shift. At the 2017 local elections, they still seemed to dominate in the immigration-heavy areas. SPP and Red-Green Alliance are probably the parties one would normally think of as potentially attracting some of these voters, but the Alternative seems to be doing it most visibly. The previous leader of the immigrant party National Party, Kashif Ahmad, is running for the party in Copenhagen. And I would think he would be among their most-voted candidates, although they are likely to decline to one seat for party leader Uffe Elbæk. Sikandar Siddique, who was involved with hardline islamists Hizb ut-Tahrir in the early 00es, is also running for the Alternative in Copenhagen Environs. And it was very weird when party leader Uffe Elbæk and EP lead candidate Rasmus Nordqvist, who are normally very focused on gender equality in debate panels etc., joined Siddique for a male-only party event in the ghetto in Albertslund. So we could potentially see scandals similar to the ones regarding the Greens in Sweden. Since the party does not have a lot of notable candidates in many areas, it is not unthinkable that one of their new immigrant candidates could do a Leila Ali-Elmi and be elected MP in an upset.

The National Party never really got off the ground. Perhaps due to poor organization, because Ahmad was from a small Muslim ahmadiyya group, or because they associated themselves with poet Yahya Hassan, who was very critical about the hypocrisy and life style of many ghetto immigrants. But I would certainly not rule off another DENK like party having more success; it seems quite likely.

[Diouf]

The Danish Electoral System

In this election, the candidates fight for 179 seats. 175 in Denmark, 2 in Greenland and 2 on the Faroe Islands. Here I will describe the electoral system used.
First off, there are five different levels in Denmark in the electoral system. The top one is Denmark at-large. The second layer is the three electoral provinces (Metropolitan Copenhagen, Sealand-Southern Denmark, and Northern and Central Jutland). The three provinces each consist of 3-4 multi-member constituencies. The multi-member constituencies each have 2-13 nomination districts. And in each nomination district, there is a number of polling places. In the map at the bottom, one can see the multi-member constituencies and nomination districts drawn up.

The 175 seats are divided into 135 constituency seats and 40 compensatory seats. The 135 constituency seats are divided at the multi-member constituency level. The smallest constituency, Bornholm, has 2 constituency seats, while the largest, Zealand, has 20 constituency seats. The electoral method starts out with distributing these constituency seats in each constituency by using the D'Hondt method with the divisors 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.

The next step is to figure out which parties are eligible for the 40 compensatory seats. This eligibility can be achieved in three different ways. The first way is to have won a constituency seat. The second way is to have achieved at least 2% in Denmark at-large. The third way is to pass a vote ratio in 2 of the 3 electoral provinces. This vote ratio is the number of valid votes cast/the number of constituency seats. In Sealand-Southern Denmark in 2015, the ratio was 1 280 794/50= 25 615.8, rounded up to 25 616. AFAIK, no party has become eligible for compensatory seats only by achieving the third criteria. Normally, such a party will either have won a constituency seat or crossed 2% nationally as well. I guess, the most likely option is if a party is really weak in Metropolitan Copenhagen, while being just below the constituency seat threshold in the rest of the country.
Once you know which parties are eligible, you are ready to distribute the compensatory seats. You do this by calculating how many seats each party has deserved in total. Each party's number of votes is divided by the number of votes for all eligible parties and then multiplicated by 1.75. The party then deserves the number of seats corresponding to the full number, and the remaining seats are distributed to the highest remainders. So for SPP in 2015, the calculation is 147 578/ 3 486 844 X 1.75 = 7.407. So the party deserves 7 seats as the 0.407 was not among the biggest remainders.
However, before these seats are safe, we have to check whether any parties have won more constituency seats than the total deserved seat number, i.e. Überhangmandate. The last time these were in play were in 1947 as seen in the pic below. Here the Liberals won 8 constituency seats more than deserved in total. This was due to their strength in the smaller jutlandic constituencies at the time, and by smartly letting the Capital Liberals run as their own party. If a party wins more constituency seats than deserved seats on the national level, the party gets to keep all those seats. You then draw this party and its seats out of the calculation (i.e. Liberals and their 46 seats), and calculate how many seats each remaining party deserve from the remaining seats. Überhangmandate are much less likely to occur now due to the increase in size of constituencies.
Once each party knows how many compensatory seats it has won, these must be distributed among the parties geographically. This first happens at the province levels, where pure Sainte-Laguë (divisors 1, 3, 5) are used to determine the party quotas. Each province has a fixed number of compensatory seats. Then the seats are distributed to parties in each province across the constituencies. Here the divisors 1, 4, 7, 10 are used. The number of compensatory seats on constituency level is not fixed; it simply depends on where the parties have their biggest remaining quotas. So in 2015, only 1 of the 11 compensatory seats in Metropolitan Copenhagen was distributed in the Copenhagen multi-member constituency.
Later, I will make on post on how the seats are distributed between the candidates in the parties. However, the rules for this has been changed during this term to make it more complicated by allowing the parties to choose between additional different systems. So I would like to wait until the parties have announced which system they will use.

[Diouf]

Hvem Stemmer Hvad made the below chart, which shows whether any of the parties are likely to be eligible for compensatory seats without reaching the 2% threshold. The calculation is based on the 2015 result, and then proportionally lowering/raising the party's percentage. It shows that two parties, Christian Democrats and Alternative, are likely to be eligible based on constituency seats. With a proportional rise, the Christian Democrats win a constituency seat in Western Jutland on 1.91% nationally, while the Alternative retains their presence in parliament even on 1.97% nationally, by winning a constituency seat in Copenhagen.
It also shows which parties could actually get in based on the third criteria, hitting the vote ratio in 2/3 provinces. The Liberals would actually manage that, because they have distribution mentioned in the above post. They are weakest in Metropolitan Copenhagen, and a fairly equal popularity outside of that. So even if they got just below 1.9% nationally, they would still get into parliament. The Social Democrats are also quite close to be able to pull this off based on the 2015 result. And if, as I expect, there will be a bigger gap between their vote in Metropolitan Copenhagen and elsewhere this year, then it would probably be true for them. Although of course, neither the Liberals nor the Social Democrats are in threshold danger, while Christian Democrats and probably also Alternative are. Since this is based on 2015 result, it does not take into account the three new parties, and how their vote distribution could be.

[BlueSwan]

Might be worth it just to do a post summing up all the parties.

I'll do a very rough summary:

Blue Bloc:
Venstre: The classic pragmatic center-left party, that is always seeking power. Calls itself liberal, but might as well call itself conservative as they are more like for instance the german CDU than they are like classical liberal parties. Historically aligned with farmers and rural areas.

Conservatives: Often indistinguishable from Venstre day-to-day given the same pragmatic tendency, but with more emphasis on classic conservative issues like law & order and defense-spending. These days the conservatives are to the right of Venstre on economic issues, but a few decades ago it was the other way around.

Liberal Alliance: In essense, mostly an economically rightwing party. Early on there was a push to be more of a true libertarian party with leftwing social positions, but that has pretty much evaporated or at least is not afforded any focus whatsoever. This is why they have been able to accept the anti-immigration line of the blue bloc in general.

Danish Peoples Party: Started as a true protest right-wing party both socially and economically, but discovered over time that most of their potential voters would be attracted to a mix of starchly conservative social views and more economically populist views. In essense they are primarily known for their immigration policies, but they are also rather pragmatic, meaning that while they have avoided becoming a governing party, they have been willing to compromise on a number of issues to further their anti-immigration agenda.

New right: Basically, the DPP left an opening to the right when they moved to the center economically and the New Right tries to fill that opening as a pure right wing party - more or less the position filled by the DPP and its parent party (The progress party) in the 1990's.

Tough line: Basically a populist semi-fascist anti-immigration party a step or two away from pure nazism. Basically wants Apartheid policies in Denmark.

The Christian democrats: Humanist christian conservative party that does not like the anti-immigration stances of the rest of the blue bloc. Has a tough time getting more than 2% of the vote given the fact that danes aren't particularly religious and generally pro-abortion.

Klaus Riskær Pedersen: A strange mish-mash of ideas that are neither clearly rightwing or clearly leftwing. I probably couldn't do it justice in a few words. Cllearly lacks a "key issue" that can elevate the party, which is mostly defined by its leader (hence, the name of the party).


Red bloc:
Social democrats: Super pragmatic center-left party of the scandinavian social democratic position where socialist policies have basically been abandoned in favour of fine tuning a mixed economy welfare state. In recent years they have adopted most of the anti-immigration stances of the blue bloc, more or less due to being sick and tired of losing elections on this single issue. If an election is held on the welfare state, the red bloc almost certainly wins as certainly as they lose elections held on immigration.

The social liberals: Reformist center-left party, staunchly left-wing on social issues and centrists on economic issues. They are NOT a right-wing party on economic issues, which is often wrongfully assumed. The social liberals do not think high taxes are unfair, like most blue bloc parties. The party only wants to lower taxes if it is deemed advantageous for the overall economy. The default position of the party is to work with social democrats. They have two times in history supported blue bloc governments (1968-1971 and 1982-1993), but both of those scenarios required some special circumstances to happen and a loooot has happened since then.

The social peoples party: These days, the identity of this party is basically like the social democrats only a bit more to the left on all issues. It is still a fairly pragmatic party though, but the party for you if you think the social democrats aren't socialist enough.

The red-green alliance: The true socialist party in Denmark, only recently abandoning the idea of an actual revolution. But it's the only party who believe in abandoning the market economy. But like most established danish parties, they can be fairly pragmatic in daily dealings, even if they don't seem to be so.

The alternative: Break-off party from the social liberals who were a bit fed up with the economic pragmatism of the parent party. Their main issues are climate change and thinking outside of the box with ideas like universal basic income.

[Diouf]

The social liberals: Reformist center-left party, staunchly left-wing on social issues and centrists on economic issues. They are NOT a right-wing party on economic issues, which is often wrongfully assumed. The social liberals do not think high taxes are unfair, like most blue bloc parties. The party only wants to lower taxes if it is deemed advantageous for the overall economy. The default position of the party is to work with social democrats. They have two times in history supported blue bloc governments (1968-1971 and 1982-1993), but both of those scenarios required some special circumstances to happen and a loooot has happened since then.

Unlike the Blue Bloc parties who only wants to lover taxes to be evil

[BlueSwan]

The social liberals: Reformist center-left party, staunchly left-wing on social issues and centrists on economic issues. They are NOT a right-wing party on economic issues, which is often wrongfully assumed. The social liberals do not think high taxes are unfair, like most blue bloc parties. The party only wants to lower taxes if it is deemed advantageous for the overall economy. The default position of the party is to work with social democrats. They have two times in history supported blue bloc governments (1968-1971 and 1982-1993), but both of those scenarios required some special circumstances to happen and a loooot has happened since then.

Unlike the Blue Bloc parties who only wants to lover taxes to be evil

No. The distinction I'm making is this:

A lot of leftwing parties want high progressive taxes because they believe in income equality.

A lot of rightwing parties want low taxes because they believe in individual freedom and hence view income redistribution to be problematic.

The social liberal part in Denmark generally follow the Rawlsian principle that you should only introduce the level of inequality that benefits those worst off. This is missed by all of those who regard the social liberal party as rightwing economically. They are not. I was a member of that party for a couple of decades and I literally never met anybody in the party who regarded the high taxes as unfair. Likewise, the social liberals never support cutting the levels of unemployment subsidies (or whatever it is called in english) or similar benefits.

[Diouf]

The social liberal part in Denmark generally follow the Rawlsian principle that you should only introduce the level of inequality that benefits those worst off. This is missed by all of those who regard the social liberal party as rightwing economically. They are not. I was a member of that party for a couple of decades and I literally never met anybody in the party who regarded the high taxes as unfair. Likewise, the social liberals never support cutting the levels of unemployment subsidies (or whatever it is called in english) or similar benefits.

Too bad, the professors in the party forget all their rationality and Rawlsian principles when it comes to immigration I sensed your affinity for the party, and we all talk highly of our own preferred party. But it is quite understable why many see them as right-wing economically, since they have made a number of deals with the right wing on economy in recent years, on cutting the length one can get unemployment benefits and removing the standard early retirement scheme. In government, they led the way on tougher conditions for people on cash benefits, early retirement and flexijobs and strict budget restrictions for municipalities and regions as well as cutting taxes for companies and raising the limit for when you have to pay top tax. And now their proposals include raising the retirement age, cutting the top tax level and lowering the earnings limits non-EU immigrants have to reach to be allowed to come and work. And I'm not against many of these things, but it is understable why most people regard them as quite right wing on economy, whether they argue based on freedom or rationality. And most centre-right parties also use rationality logic quite a lot; e.g. there is a reason why Liberal Alliance have focused so much on getting the Finance Ministry to calculate its proposals which show higher growth, employment etc. Something they often refer to.

[BlueSwan]

The social liberal part in Denmark generally follow the Rawlsian principle that you should only introduce the level of inequality that benefits those worst off. This is missed by all of those who regard the social liberal party as rightwing economically. They are not. I was a member of that party for a couple of decades and I literally never met anybody in the party who regarded the high taxes as unfair. Likewise, the social liberals never support cutting the levels of unemployment subsidies (or whatever it is called in english) or similar benefits.

Too bad, the professors in the party forget all their rationality and Rawlsian principles when it comes to immigration I sensed your affinity for the party, and we all talk highly of our own preferred party. But it is quite understable why many see them as right-wing economically, since they have made a number of deals with the right wing on economy in recent years, on cutting the length one can get unemployment benefits and removing the standard early retirement scheme. In government, they led the way on tougher conditions for people on cash benefits, early retirement and flexijobs and strict budget restrictions for municipalities and regions as well as cutting taxes for companies and raising the limit for when you have to pay top tax. And now their proposals include raising the retirement age, cutting the top tax level and lowering the earnings limits non-EU immigrants have to reach to be allowed to come and work. And I'm not against many of these things, but it is understable why most people regard them as quite right wing on economy, whether they argue based on freedom or rationality. And most centre-right parties also use rationality logic quite a lot; e.g. there is a reason why Liberal Alliance have focused so much on getting the Finance Ministry to calculate its proposals which show higher growth, employment etc. Something they often refer to.

The reason the liberal alliance has gotten the finance ministry to calculate their proposals is because they are well aware that the way the models are designed, cutting governement spending to lower taxes will ALWAYS lead to a good outcome. This is a key problem with economic models that they do not calculate the benefits of government spending on things like education, child daycare, etc. Basically, if the government cut education spending in half, the models would predict wonderful things for the danish economy going forward, which is obviously nonsense.

There is no doubt that the liberal alliance believe that their proposals are economically beneficial, but they also strongly believe that high taxation is UNFAIR, just like the left believes that income inequality is UNFAIR. When people hold a strong moral belief they tend to rationalize that their belief will also be best for everyone involved, hence the left will argue that people will be super productive when everybody is equal and the right will argue that people will be super productive when taxation is very low.

This is the real difference between those with an ideological view on taxes and those with a pragmatic view on taxes. The social liberals are super pragmatic when it comes to economic policy, something which I do not equate to being "right wing".

[Diouf]

The social liberals are super pragmatic when it comes to economic policy.

I'm not sure this is how their former coalition partners in the Social Democrats and SPP felt it, but that's history now. I understand your point, but when policies are espoused, I think most people look more at the outcomes, than what rational/ideological belief led them there. But we have laid out our points for the case of each side.

[Diouf]

It has not been a superinteresting election so far.

Some of the main points from the past week.

Liberals moving very centrist on economy with high promises on welfare spending. Quite a difference from their 2015 campaign, where the message was zero growth in the public sector. This has caused criticism, particularly from the Liberal Alliance. Theoretically it should also widen the playing field for them on the economically right-wing side, but the question is whether they can play as effectively after being tarnished by being in a government whose outcomes were quite moderate economic policies.

DPP trying to go to the playbook that recently helped PS/FvD by going hard against the climate hysteria, and wanting to protect the traditional Danish agriculture. People shouldn't feel like sinners when they eat a beef or go on holiday. It will set them apart from the Social Democrats, so could potentially help them get back some of these swing voters. New Right and Tough Line are also pretty opposed to measures to prevent climate change, so less likely to have an influence with that leakage.

Finally more stories are emerging about the questionable behaviour of Rasmus Paludan. The latest is that he in 2013 received a restraining order against a 24-year old man, whom he had studied with. Paludan harrassed him with 20-40 calls a day from different phone numbers, standing outside his apartment, stalking him to events like concerts and football matches, taking pictures/filming him, making continued contacts to his neighbours, friends and family with made-up stories etc. It's hard to judge whether stories like this will matter. Plenty of examples from elsewhere that they don't, but on the other hand, there are alternatives here like DPP and New Right, which should be quite palatable for Tough Line voters.

[BlueSwan]

It is very hard not to see the latest events as complete desperation on behalf of Venstre. Rehashing the taxation-stop, trying out be completely similar to the social democrats on economic policies and then trying to make everything about immigration. It is a recipe that worked in the 00's and I understand why they are trying it again, but there is a difference in using that strategy from a position of strength, which Anders Fogh Rasmussen had then, and emplying the same strategy from a position of utter desperation. Also, the social democrats are no longer seen as soft on immigration, which is probably the entire key to understanding the shift in bloc support.

[Famous Mortimer]

Weird that the Liberals are big in rural areas and the Conservatives have most of their support in urban areas. That's the opposite of the way it usually is in most countries where there's parties called "Conservative" and "Liberal".

[DavidB.]

Weird that the Liberals are big in rural areas and the Conservatives have most of their support in urban areas. That's the opposite of the way it usually is in most countries where there's parties called "Conservative" and "Liberal".

It makes sense if you view the Danish conservatives as the conservative elite in and around the capital city, whereas the liberals stand in the Nordic liberal tradition of farmers outside the capital wishing for the government and the elites, far away in the capital city (don't underestimate the degree to which Copenhagen felt, was, and to a certain extent still is far away from Jutland), to leave them alone.