The Social Democrats

The Social Democrats increased their vote share for the first time ever in an EU election, where they remained the largest party with over a quarter of Swedes voting for them.

“The election results show clear left winds blowing in Sweden,” party leader Magdalena Andersson told the TT newswire. “We’ve gone against the current somewhat compared to other countries, as our main opposition (the Sweden Democrats) lost support.”

The party saw their best results in Överkalix, Arvidsjaur and Älvsbyn, all in northern Sweden, with 44.3, 44.2 and 44.1 percent of the vote. All voting figures in this article are preliminary.

The Moderates

Danderyd outside Stockholm remains the right-wing Moderates’ stronghold, where they received 39.9 percent of votes, followed by Vellinge with 37.8 percent and Lidingö with 34.3 percent.

Unsurprisingly, these were also the worst municipalities for the Social Democrats, who received just 8.5 percent of the vote in Danderyd, 11.7 percent in Vellinge and 12.2 percent in Lidingö.

The Moderates were Sweden’s second largest party in the EU elections, with its leader, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, highlighting the fact that they managed to increase voter share while in government, which is usually considered to be difficult.

“Now we’ve done it twice,” he said.

They reported their worst results in Dorotea, Pajala and Sollefteå (6.1 percent, 6.7 percent and 7.5 percent respectively), all in northern Sweden.

The Greens

The EU elections were good news for the Greens, who increased voter share in almost all municipalities and gained an extra seat. Their best result was in Jokkmokk in the far north of Sweden, where more than one in four voted for them, followed by Lund in southern Sweden (22.6 percent) and Åre in Jämtland (21.9 percent).

They were also the largest party among voters in Stockholm, with 20.5 percent of the vote, just ahead of the Social Democrats.

Top EU candidate Alice Bah Kuhnke described the results as “a success”.

The Greens’ worst results were all in northern Sweden, with just 3.3 percent of the vote in Överkalix, 3.6 in Dorotea and 3.8 in Åsele.

The Sweden Democrats

The EU elections were historically bad for the far-right Sweden Democrats, who lost votes across the country as a whole for the first time since entering parliament in 2010.

They recorded a worse result in almost all of Sweden in the EU election, losing as much as a third of voters in some districts and gaining voter share in just nine. But they’re still one of the strongest in southern region Skåne, and took home one in three votes in Sjöbo municipality.

Their biggest loss in Skåne was in Bromölla, where their voter share dropped 7.9 percentage points to 27.9 percent. In Almgården in Malmö, they lost around a third of their voters, and in Kronetorp-Burlöv in Burlöv, they lost around half of their previous voters.

Hampus Bergh, a Sweden Democrat municipal council member in Gnosjö in Jonköping county, where support for the party dropped 8.5 points to 16.6 percent, said dwindling support could be due to difficulty mobilising core voters.

“I think we’re bad at communicating how important the EU election is to our voters in Gnosjö, and communicating the large impact EU has on municipal, regional and national politics. And getting them to vote,” he told TT. 

The party saw its largest gains in Torsby, Tidaholm and Aneby, gaining 0.4 percentage points in all three municipalities. At the district level, it gained the most votes in Lina östra in Södertälje – 7.5 percentage points.

The Left Party

The biggest winners were the Left Party, who saw their share of the vote increase across the entire country, but especially in the north, making them the only party to gain an extra seat in the European Parliament. Their vote share grew the most in Malå in Västerbotten, where more than a third voted for them (36 percent), followed by a quarter of voters in Umeå and Vilhelmina (both 25.7 percent).

They had their worst results in Moderate strongholds Vellinge (2.4 percent), outside Malmö, and Danderyd (2.6) outside Stockholm, as well as Lomma, also near Malmö, where they got just 3 percent of the vote.

The party’s top candidate, Jonas Sjöstedt, who is also a former leader of the Left Party, described it as “a fantastic election for the red-green parties”.

“If it was a parliamentary election we would have wiped the floor with the Tidö parties,” he told SVT.

The Christian Democrats

The right-wing Christian Democrats saw support drop in almost all municipalities, although the party considered their result to be a win despite this, as they swapped out their MEP Sara Skyttedal with journalist Alice Teodorescu Måwe back in January, just a few months before the election.

They were the only party to lose a seat, with their best results in Högsby in southeastern Sweden (19.6 percent), Sävsjö in Jönköping county (18.4 percent) and Öckerö in the Gothenburg archipelago (18.3 percent).

Their worst results were in Hällefors in central Sweden (2.4 percent), Hofors, just east of Gävle (3.3 percent), and Jokkmokk in the north (3.2 percent).

The Centre Party

In a similar story to that of the Christian Democrats, the Centre Party lost votes in almost all municipalities – gaining voter share in only one: Haparanda on the Finnish border. They managed to hang on to their two seats in the EU parliament, which is a feat considering polls had suggesteed they were at risk of getting less than 4 percent of the vote and missing the threshold entirely.

“When campaigning began people had counted us out. What we’ve shown today is that by working together we’ve had our second-best EU election ever,” party leader Muharrem Demirok, told TT newswire.

Their best result was in Haparanda, with 18.5 percent, followed by Ydre (southeastern Sweden), where they got 15.8 percent and Krokom in Jämtland with 14.3 percent, while their worst results were all in the north: just 2.6 percent in Gällivare and 2.8 percent in both Jokkmokk and Kiruna.

The Liberals

The centre-right Liberals also scraped together just enough votes to clear the four-percent hurdle, with a preliminary result of 4.4 percent. They were popular in Moderate strongholds Danderyd and Lomma, where they got 10.9 and 9.9 percent of the vote, and in Landskrona, where they got 9.8 percent.

Their worst results were in Högsby in the south and Strömsund and Ragunda, both in Jämtland, where they got just 0.7 percent of the vote.

“They’d counted us out,” Liberal leader Johan Pehrson said. “But they were wrong, again.”

That hasn’t stopped him from aiming high for the next EU election. “In 2029 we’re going to get two seats,” he said.