Frederiksen’s
unhappy birthday: Danish PM’s party suffers election shellacking
For the
first time in 122 years the Social Democrats will not govern Copenhagen, which
will now have a left-wing mayor.
The prime
minister said she took "responsibility" for the electoral debacle,
and said that she would "carefully consider what is behind it." |
November
19, 2025 11:38 am CET
By Aitor
Hernández-Morales
Danish
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats suffered heavy losses in
Tuesday’s nationwide local elections, losing key cities including Copenhagen
for the first time since 1903.
“We had
expected losses, but the decline appears to be greater than we had expected,”
Frederiksen told supporters at a party event in the Danish capital. “That is,
of course, not satisfactory.”
Although
the Social Democrats remain Denmark’s most popular political group, securing
around 23 percent of all votes, support for the party declined in 87 of the
country’s 98 municipalities.
The prime
minister said she took “responsibility” for the electoral debacle, and said
that she would “carefully consider what is behind it.” With Denmark required to
hold general elections within the next year, the losses in Copenhagen and other
Danish cities are likely to put pressure on Frederiksen to change course on
some of her signature policies during the coming months.
The
liberal Venstre group now controlling the largest number of mayoralties in
Denmark underscores the political disaster suffered by Frederiksen’s party,
whose electoral base is supposed to be made up of urban voters.
The high
cost of housing dominated the campaign in Denmark’s largest municipalities,
with voters exasperated by the national government’s response. In Copenhagen,
where home prices have risen by 20 percent over the past year, just 12.7
percent of electors backed the prime minister’s party.
After 122
years of Social Democrat rule in Copenhagen, the party’s candidate, Pernille
Rosenkrantz–Theill, was not even invited to attend negotiations to form the
capital’s next government. Sisse Marie Welling — whose Socialists made the
largest gains in the election — will be Copenhagen’s new lord mayor, leading a
“green and progressive majority.”
Welling
has tapped Line Barfod, whose Red-Green Alliance secured 1 out of every 5 votes
cast in the capital, to be Copenhagen’s environment czar. That poses a major
threat to the government’s controversial Lynetteholm artificial island project,
which is meant to protect the city from flooding and create space for new
housing. Barfod is a longtime opponent of the €2.7 billion scheme and she’s
likely to make much of a new report showing the project is leaking cyanide into
Copenhagen’s waters.
Beyond
the capital, the Social Democrats suffered dramatic reversals in traditional
bastions like Frederikshavn, where support for the party fell by half. The
far-right Danish Democrats performed well in rural municipalities in Jutland,
and won more seats than the number of candidates they had running for office in
places such as Lolland.
While the
prime minister — whose birthday is Wednesday — said that local factors had
contributed to the defeat, she acknowledged that there were “also trends that
transcend local conditions.”
Beyond
debates over classic urban issues like mobility policies and access to green
spaces, the local elections were seen as a referendum on the rightward turn the
Social Democrats have taken at the national level. Based on the results, voters
in major cities appear to be souring on Frederiksen’s tough stance on migration
and her willingness to ally with economic liberal parties.
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