In last week’s parliamentary elections in Sweden, the Swedish Social Democratic Party undoubtedly became the largest party, with the support of 28 per cent of voters and a strong chance of leading the next government by replacing the incumbent right-wing one. Yet, within Swedish Social Democracy, a sense of dissatisfaction prevails. How did this come about?

In a fragmented parliament with eight parties, 28 per cent of the popular vote is not a disaster – especially not from a European perspective. When conservative Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson steps down after four years, it will be the first time since 1994 that a Swedish government has lost power after only a single term.

Yet the 2-point drop to 28 per cent remains historically weak for the Social Democrats. Above all, the contrast with the preceding term is striking. For periods, the party polled between 35 and 37 per cent, and as recently as August, the centre-left opposition bloc held a lead of around ten percentage points. When the results came in, however, the election was decided by a razor-thin margin.

The central subject for Sweden’s Social Democrats, therefore, is not merely about the 28 per cent figure, but about how rapidly support plummeted as the election approached. To put it bluntly: the Social Democrats may have won the war, but they lost the battles.

A tight election – and small shifts with major consequences

The Social Democrats (S) fell to 28.0 per cent, while the Moderates (M) rose to 19.9 per cent. The far-right Sweden Democrats (SD) suffered the largest loss, falling to 17.5 per cent, while the Left Party (V) rose to 8.4 per cent and the Centre Party (C) to 7.0 per cent. Overall, the opposition – S, V, MP and C – secured 176 seats, compared with 173 for the governing right-wing bloc.

Significant voter shifts occurred, but primarily within the blocs. The change in majority may therefore ultimately have been decided by a relatively small group that actually switched from the right to the left. One way to understand the election is that it was decided by liberal-centrist voters who were scared by the Sweden Democrats. For the Social Democrats, the picture is different, as they lost voters both within the opposition and to the right-wing bloc.

Since 2010, S had been gaining support among the urban middle class. That trend weakened in 2026 without being offset by successes in sparsely populated areas or smaller industrial towns. On the contrary, the party lost ground even in its traditional strongholds, particularly in parts of northern Sweden. At the same time, the Sweden Democrats also lost support. The decline of S, therefore, cannot simply be described as yet another election where the party lost its traditional voter base to the radical right.

The Sweden Democrats’ decline

For the first time since the party’s inception, SD lost ground in a general election. A virtually unique historical trend was broken. The primary reason for the decline was a direct flow of voters to other parties, particularly the Moderates. I see three particularly interesting explanations.

First, the political agenda was likely less favourable to SD than in 2022, when the debate was dominated by shootings, soaring electricity and fuel prices, and the riots that shook Sweden during the summer. The 2026 election campaign took place in a different climate.

Second, four years of proximity to power may have weakened SD’s anti-establishment profile. The right-wing cooperation with the far-right has normalised SD among centre-right voters, but this normalisation works both ways: just as the gap between Moderate voters and SD has narrowed, so too has the gap between SD voters and the Moderates or the Christian Democrats.

Third, the political nature of the migration debate – SD’s core issue – have changed. Some of the most emotionally charged conflicts of the spring centred on teenagers who had grown up in Sweden but faced deportation. The debate shifted from how many people should be allowed to enter Sweden to what should happen to individuals already part of society. Deportation policies became very visible for most Swedes: neighbours, classmates and colleagues.

This likely disadvantaged the far right and may have benefited parties with a less radical profile.

The Social Democratic equation did not work out

The Social Democrats campaigned on an unusually bold welfare platform: subsidised dental care; inflation-proofed funding for schools, healthcare, and elderly care; strengthened sickness benefits and pensions; measures to address market failures in the welfare sector; and proposals targeting excessive bank profits. At the same time, the party maintained the tougher migration and crime policies developed since 2015.

Both shifts were fundamentally rooted in a critical reassessment of past policies. The class divides had widened, market-based solutions had gone too far, integration had failed and organised violent crime had reached tragic levels – even under Social Democratic governments. Consequently, the policy direction was changed. This formed the backdrop to what the Social Democrats described as their political ‘renewal’, a course also ratified at the party congress. However, a strategic element also became apparent during the election campaign.

One could view it as an attempt by the Social Democrats to neutralise crime and migration as electoral liabilities by positioning themselves relatively close to the Tidö parties, while placing household finances and welfare at the centre of the agenda. The implicit calculation seems to have been that losses to the Left and Green Parties were acceptable, provided the Social Democrats simultaneously won enough votes from the right-woing parties – specifically the Moderates and Sweden Democrats.
Yet only half the equation worked.

The Social Democrats lost votes to the left without gaining enough from the right. On the contrary, the party suffered a net loss to the right-wing bloc as well: more voters switched from the Social Democrats to a right-wing party than the other way around. This makes simple explanations problematic. The Social Democrats did not lose support solely to the left, nor through a simple shift to the right; they lost voters in both directions.

The coalition problem and the ‘double haters’

The Social Democrats’ exceptional polling numbers earlier in the term were partly due to their ability to reach far beyond their traditional voter base. The election campaign made this coalition harder to hold together. The American term ‘double haters’ – which gained prominence during the 2016 election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton – describes voters who dislike both options and therefore vote primarily to prevent the alternative they dislike the most.

In Sweden, the equivalent phenomenon is more closely tied to government coalitions. There are centrist voters who strongly dislike the Sweden Democrats but are simultaneously deeply sceptical of the Left and Green parties. The right-wing parties opted for clarity, increasingly presenting themselves as a cohesive government alternative – eventually even raising the possibility of SD ministers.

The Social Democrats chose flexibility. Party leader and former Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson did not define a fixed government coalition but instead campaigned on the party’s own platform. The question of government formation was to be decided after the election, and the Social Democrats signalled openness to cooperation with everyone except the Sweden Democrats. This strategy maximised the number of voters the Social Democrats could potentially attract, but it also created a vulnerability: what kind of government would a vote for the party actually result in?

The Social Democrats found themselves fighting a war on two fronts. From the left, critics claimed Andersson would compromise with the centre and the right. From the right, critics claimed she would become dependent on the Left and Green parties. These arguments were contradictory but reinforced the same underlying message: you don’t know what you’re getting with the Social Democrats.

This is linked to what I consider the most important strategic development of the election.

The Moderates turned the election campaign around

From the time of the Social Democrats’ 2025 party congress, the Moderates increasingly acted like an opposition party, despite holding the majority. Instead of asking voters to evaluate the Kristersson government, they tried to get them to evaluate a government that did not yet exist.

The Social Democratic congress was portrayed as a ‘dangerous shift to the left’ by the Moderates. During the campaign, warnings were issued about higher mortgage costs and fuel prices, increased migration, businesses leaving Sweden, the influence of the Left Party and weaker crime policies. Several of these claims were based on extremely far-reaching interpretations of Social Democratic policy. Many were highly contentious, and some were outright incorrect. I would describe the campaign as unusually unscrupulous and often blatantly dishonest.

Yet its strategic purpose was clear: to transform the election from a referendum on the incumbent government into a referendum on the risks of changing government. At first, it did not seem to be working. As election day approached, however, the question in voters’ minds may well have shifted from ‘which party do I prefer?’, to: ‘which vote is most likely to lead to the government I prefer – or prevent the government I fear?’

This would explain the return of centre-right voter. It encouraged strategic voting for the Liberals and raised the political cost of the Social Democrats’ undefined government alternative. At the same time, it opened the door to tactical voting among S sympathisers who wanted to pull a future S government to the right or the left. Furthermore, the right – and the Moderates in particular – attempted to overtake the Social Democrats on the party’s core issues. Among other things, the Moderates campaigned on free preschool, a policy previously viewed as a distinctly left-wing position.

This leads to yet another paradox: the Social Democrats campaigned on a welfare program of historic strength and ambition. Yet, they did not face a fierce conflict over the scope of the welfare state; instead, they encountered opponents who sought to compete with them by launching their own welfare initiatives.

Europe and the road ahead

If the opposition’s majority holds, a complex parliamentary puzzle remains. Any consensus among the Social Democrats, the Left Party, the Greens, and the Centre Party must reconcile the significant differences between the parties, not least regarding economic policy. It is too early to say exactly what this means for government coalitions, policy or forms of cooperation.

At the same time, there is a potential common denominator in European policy. While the parties differ on economic matters, they largely share a positive view of green industrialisation as a driver of investment, competitiveness and jobs. A Social Democrat-led government could therefore lead to a more active Swedish role in European green industrial policy.

The more difficult task lies on the domestic front: forging a shared agenda centred on jobs, growth, the climate, democratic values, inclusion, fairness and the welfare state. The differences are significant, yet there are also similarities among the opposition parties. Whether they can move from tough negotiations to some form of synthesis – and what that synthesis might look like – will be decisive for Sweden’s political future.

Key lessons

The election leaves Swedish Social Democracy with an uncomfortable mix of victory and defeat. If government negotiations succeed, the victory will be the lasting memory. Yet, even if the war was won, there is every reason to learn from the battles that were lost.

The Social Democrats garnered just over 28 per cent of the vote and remain the country’s clearly largest party. The party retains power in the three largest cities and in many municipalities and regions. No one really challenged the party’s core issue – the welfare state; even the right tried to sound Social Democratic instead. Furthermore, the party is well-positioned to form and lead the next government. It is not an easy situation, nor are the conditions perfect. Yet, it is a position that offers great opportunities for the future. The party should be able to grab them.

Photo credits: Shutterstock / MemoSaBAM