The Liberals' difficult choice: They bleed voters to Løkke in the city and to Støjberg in the countryside

Article first appeared in Børsen 08-05-2024, translated here 13-05-2024.

Perhaps the solution to the decline of the Danish Liberal Party (”Venstre”) lies in the formula that brought the party to power for more than a decade

Last week, the Danish Liberal Party was measured to have a support of 6.5 per cent if there were general elections tomorrow. According to Rud Pedersen's own election model, the party stands at 7.4 per cent, and the party’s decline is not necessarily over. It can go horribly wrong, and there is no guarantee that we will not see a support for the Left of, for example, 4 per cent, after the summer break.

PARALYSED PARTY
Perhaps the worst thing about the Liberal Party decline is that it seems to have paralysed the party in a battle for the favour of rural vs. metropolitan voters. Because it is very difficult to find the good arguments that it is the rural municipalities that must be the Liberals' salvation when you delve into the numbers.

First, the rural electorate is not as large as it once was. According to Statistics Denmark, fewer votes were cast in the general election in 2022 in the 31 municipalities that are categorised as rural municipalities than in the 16 municipalities that are categorised as provincial municipalities.

Secondly, the rural municipalities were also not the most important bastion for the Liberal Party under Anders Fogh and in Lars Løkke Rasmussen's first government period, when the party was the natural prime minister's party and were achieving election results of 20-30% of all votes cast.

At the end of that era in 2011, the Liberal Party got more votes in the 16 provincial municipalities (e.g. Esbjerg, Næstved and Køge) than in the 31 rural municipalities (e.g. Morsø, Thisted and Lolland). What the Danish pollical analyst, and former political advisor to the Liberal Party, Søs Marie Serup has called "Parcelhus-Venstre" was the key to power in the good years.

Thirdly, the former Liberal Party voters in the rural municipalities who have today left the party will have to be wrestled free from the new Right-wing party Danish Democrats. But our measurements show that many have a great time with Inger Støjberg.

"It is difficult to imagine that the Liberals will be able to appeal as clearly to rural voters who are frustrated with climate policy as the Danish Democrats."

It is not only the difficulty of the mission that makes the idea of winning back voters from the Danish Democrats difficult. The biggest problem is that the discussion about climate and the environment overshadows discussions that appeal to at least as many current and potential Liberal voters, and are far less divisive.

One example is the health policy, which is also the most important political issue for the voters of the Left, and which was previously one of the party's bastions. In contrast to climate policy, health policy brings together Liberal voters, but our figures also reveal that the Liberals no longer have the lead.

And in a broader sense: Where does the Liberal Party stand in relation to the change from a welfare state to a welfare society, which Mette Frederiksen and others have announced, and which should be the Liberal Party's home ground?

DECLINE MEANS FEWER ARE RE-ELECTED
Rud Pedersen's electoral model is able to distribute the parliamentary mandates in the "large constituencies", which are the pivot in our electoral system for the parliamentary elections. When you do that, the discussion about the Left suddenly becomes very concrete, indeed almost brutal.

In constituency after constituency, hard-working and skilled Liberal politicians will lose their place in the Danish Parliament if things go as badly for the Liberals as the figures suggest. According to our calculations, the liberals' charge of the parliamentary group will go beyond both experienced forces and future hopes among the current elected representatives.

The European Parliament elections in a month will be the first time we have to vote since the establishment of the SVM government. In the EP elections in 2019, the Left got four mandates. Rud Pedersen's EP election model gives the Liberals two mandates in the election in a month's time, and when we delve into the numbers, it is, among other things, because the party is fielding relatively well-known and well-liked candidates.

Of the three candidates, Morten Løkkegaard is relatively certain of re-election. The second Liberal mandate will most likely have to be decided between Ulla Tørnæs and Asger Christensen.

Both have roots in Jutland, but Asger Christensen, with his stated opposition to a CO2 tax for agriculture, has connected the EP election to the general debate between country and city.

It will be interesting to see which of them draws the longest straw. Two EP mandates is not flashy, but quite acceptable, all things considered. The problem is that the Liberal Party’s current support does not even mean that the two mandates are secure.

If the Left get 8 percent of the votes in the EP elections, for example, our election model shows that the party will "lack" just under 50,000 votes to secure the second mandate, even when you take the electoral alliance with the Radical Left and the Moderates into the equation.

A BROAD PARTY
It is difficult to imagine that the Liberals will be able to appeal as clearly to the rural voters who are frustrated with climate policy as the Danish Democrats.

It is just as difficult to imagine that the Liberals will be able to appeal as clearly to metropolitan voters as the Moderates, who are increasingly taking the Danish Social Liberal Party’s (“Radikale Venstre”) traditional position in Danish politics.

When Troels Lund Poulsen talks about the family with children in Østerbro, we must hope that it is not Østerbro in Copenhagen that he is thinking of.

But perhaps neither is the solution for the Left. Perhaps the party's future is the formula that brought the party to power for more than a decade: The broad party that was perceived as the best answer to the Danes' most important problems.