Who decided the 2022 election? Were there 56,000 S voters who changed parties after 2018 and voted for SD in 2022? Or was it former center voters in the countryside who went the same way? Or young men who are impressed by Jimmie Åkesson?
In fact, all three answers may be correct. For Tidöpartierna won the election in 2022 with only 46,000 votes. That is less than one percent of the electorate, and that means that there are many answers to the question of what finally decided that there was a change of power.
But today we got some keys when the election researchers at the University of Gothenburg presented their conclusions of the big one the polling station measurement Valu which they have carried out every election day since 1991. At most, they have had close to 9,000 voters answer a rather well-measured questionnaire, and the survey provides material for a long time to come for those interested in politics and party strategists.
Right wing in Swedish politics
The 2022 survey establishes that the Swedish electorate is clearly ideological on a right-left scale and that there has been a right-wing wind in Swedish politics for 20 years. And that in this election the voters moved a little further to the right. The ones who moved the most were men, especially younger men, and therefore electoral research expert Sören Holmberg says that young men were involved in ousting Magdalena Andersson.
Incidentally, in this election it was precisely Magdalena Andersson and Jimmie Åkesson who were the strongest supporters of their parties. Jimmie Åkesson actually broke a new record as party leader, 48 percent indicated him as very important for the party election, which is the highest figure measured in a survey. For Magdalena Andersson, the corresponding figure was 36 percent.
Party strategists love to divide voters into groups and then try to chase votes in those particular groups. Valu offers gloomy news for most parties, which lose more of their core voters with each election. The Social Democrats have lost workers since the 1994 election, the Moderates are losing entrepreneurs, the Center Party has gone from 75 percent support among farmers in 1991 to 20 percent in the 2022 election. KD is losing churchgoers – in the last elections, more churchgoers are Social Democrats than Christian Democrats.
C lost to SD and S
And what about the centrists in the countryside? The party clearly lost voters to the Sweden Democrats in the election, the party’s previous over-representation in rural areas has almost been erased, while SD has made strong progress in that particular voter group. But when the election researchers add up all the voter flows between the parties, the net that went from the Center to the SD is still only 14,000 voters. Significantly more people who voted C in 2018 went to the Social Democrats: a whopping 74,000 voters. And so it was a movement within the same block.
Nor do we get the full answer to the question of what decided the 2022 election from a polling station survey of this type. Because there is another group that can decide elections and it is difficult to get the hang of it at the polling stations: those who are traditionally called couch potatoes. That is, the group of over a million voters who do not vote at all. Parties work hard to mobilize voters in elections, but those who still choose to abstain from voting will of course not go to the polling stations. And thus does not answer any surveys. So as for their reasoning in this or the last election, we must continue to float in ignorance.