Good News: Sweden Democrats support hits three year low in new poll

[Celerity]

Support for the populist Sweden Democrats is at its lowest point in three years, while the Green Party is back above the four percent threshold for entering parliament, according to a new poll.

https://www.thelocal.se/20220427/sweden-democrats-see-lowest-support-in-three-years-in-new-poll/


Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Åkesson has said his party has shifted position over Nato membership. Photo: TT

According to the poll, carried out by Ipsos for Dagens Nyheter, the share of respondents who said they would vote for the far-right party fell from 19 percent in March to 18 percent in April, putting it more or less in line with the 17.5 percent share of the vote it won in the 2018 election.

The share who said they would vote Green rose from three percent to four percent. The biggest fall, however, was for the Social Democrats, who fell from the 33 percent high they saw in March in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, back to 30 percent in April.

“Right now there’s a big focus on the Nato issue and the Social Democrats’ positioning, which can impact on support for S [the Social Democrats],” Nicklas Källebring, an opinions analyst for Ipsos, told DN. “Among the party’s voters, there are people who oppose Swedish membership.” The Green Party, which has so far shown a stronger opposition to Nato membership, may be picking up some of those votes.

Källebring also believes that the the riots over the Easter weekend will have seen voters shift support from the Social Democrats to the Moderates and Sweden Democrats, drawn by their tougher messaging on crime. The Liberal Party has also seen its support grow from closer to two percent to three percent, perhaps as a result of its new leader Johan Pehrson. The Moderate Party's share of the vote stayed the same at 22 percent.

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