Jacob Christensen

Never ever ask a political scientist to guess the outcome of an election. We invariably take the bait even if we ought to know better.

So, without further ado, and for your entertainment:

V – 5 % (-0,9)
S – 35,5 % (+0,5)
MP – 8,5 % (+3,3)
C – 5 % (-2,9)
FP – 7 % (-0,5)
M – 26,5 % (+0,3)
KD – 5 % (-1,6)
SD – 4 % (+2,1)
PP – 2 % (+1,4)
JL – 0,5 % (±0)
F! – 0,5 % (-0,2)
Others – 0,5 %

Turn-out: 78,5 %

This makes for 49 % of the vote for the red-green opposition and 43,5 % for the government.

As you can see, I decided to hedge my bet on whether the Sweden Democrats make it past the 4%-treshold. 78,5 % turn-out is in the low end in Sweden, but my sense is that there is a curious lack of mobilisation among opposition voters this time. The government has lost support, but the opposition (with the exception of the Green Party – and as you can see I put the eventual support lower than current opinion polls) is not making any real gains. SD very much is the joker, in my view – 5 % of the vote and they could make things pretty messy.

In a historical perspective 35,5% of the vote would be a bad result for the Social Democrats – I have actually given them some extra votes compared with current polls. The party really needs to review its policies and electoral strategies. On the other hand, I suspect that a bourgeois version of “Comrade 4%” will save the Centre Party and the Christian Democrats – still 26,5% would be a historically good result for the Conservatives but actually I predict them to do worse than in current polls!

But as they say: It ain’t over ’till the fat lady sings.

SR has a page tracking polls here.