The Sweden Democrats, known for their conservative stance against mass immigration, are expected to score 21.5 percent of the vote and become the second-largest party in Sweden, according to the latest survey from state broadcaster SVT/Novus, which has started daily surveys that will run right up until the election.
According to the Nyheter Idag news outlet, this result would put the party 4 percentage points above its result in the 2018 election.
The Sweden Democrats have celebrated the news, and pointed out to Swedes that early voting has already started.
“By a large margin, we are now Sweden’s second-largest party according to SVT/Novus. Early voting has started, so just go and vote for us already today!” the party wrote on its official Twitter account.
The Sweden Democrats (SD) have long campaigned against mass immigration, and their growing popularity has led some of the more mainstream parties to move further to the right on immigration in order to stop SD from getting stronger. Nevertheless, migrant crime in Sweden, including murder and sexual violence, has skyrocketed, leading the country to be labeled the “most dangerous nation” in Europe by the German press. Polling also shows the majority of Swedes want to reduce mass immigration. However, other issues are weighing on Swedes, such as inflation, a stuttering economy, and sky-high housing prices.
At the same time, the Moderates only managed to scrape together 17.4 percent in the survey, which is 2.4 percentage points lower than the party’s last election results.
The survey is also not particularly cheerful reading for the ruling Social Democrats, who would score half a percent less than the party’s historically poor election results in 2018.
The polling data shows, however, that both the Green Party and the Left Party may end up above their previous election results, while the Liberals and the Center Party would perform worse.
Overall, the red-green parties showed a marginal advantage against the blue-yellow parties, with 49.6 percent against 49.3.
Other polls have also shown SD becoming the second-biggest party, but by a smaller margin.