Alliance dominates the polls as election nears

The centre-right Alliance coalition enjoyed a clear lead in a brace of new opinion polls published on Wednesday.

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In a Synovate survey the Alliance increased their lead over the Red-Green opposition to 3.5 percentage points, with the Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) showing its best result during Jan Björklund's tenure as party leader, climbing 0.6 points to 9.0 percent.

"It is still an open situation, but something needs to happen such as if the Red-Greens could push another issue into the election debate in order to turn the election wind," said Nicklas Källebring at Synovate to Dagens Nyheter, which publishes Synovate polls.

The poll shows an increase in support for the Alliance by 0.8 percentage points to 48.4 percent of the votes. The Red-Greens declined by 0.9 percent to 44.9 percent.

The Moderates dropped by 0.4 points to 29.9 percent, while the Centre and Christian Democrat parties came in at 4.5 and 5.0 percent respectively.

The Social Democrats remained unchanged at 30 percent, the Green Party dropped 0.1 points to 8.2 percent, and the Left Party dropped 0.7 points to 6.8 percent.

A further Novus/TV4 survey indicated a statistically significant 5.5 percentage point lead for the Alliance with 49.4 percent of the vote, to 43.9 percent for the Red-Greens.

The Social Democrats fell to a new record low of 27.3 percent, down 3.0 points on last week's survey and 7.7 points down on their 2006 election result - their lowest showing since universal suffrage.

The Left Party continued their recovery in the polls however, with a 2.5 point climb to 7.7 percent, a statistically significant increase on last week's Novus/TV4 poll.

"The Left Party and Lars Ohly have gained a lot of space recently thanks to the fact that the party has stood for its own line in several issues against the Social Democrats and the Green Party. That seems to have paid off in terms of an increased voter support," said Arne Modig at Novus Opinion in a statement.

The Green Party polled 8.9 percent, no change on last week.

The Moderates meanwhile declined by 0.6 points to 31.2 percent and the Liberals dropped a marginal 0.2 points to 7.0 percent.

The Centre and Christian Democrat parties climbed by 0.2 and 1.0 percent respectively to land on 5.6 percent apiece.

The far-right Sweden Democrats climbed 0.5 points in the Novus survey, to 5.2 percent - a clear margin above the threshold for parliamentary seats.

DN/Synovate's poll results are based on interviews conducted with 1,838 people from August 25th to September 6th.

Synovate poll results, September 7th 2010 (changes since September 2nd 2010 in parentheses)

Government
Moderate Party 29.9 (+0.4)
Centre Party 4.5 (-0.4)
Liberal Party 9.0 (+0.6)
Christian Democrats 5.0 (+0.9)

Total: 48.4 (Election 2006: 48.2)

Opposition
Social Democrats 30.0 (no change)
Left Party 6.8 (-0.7)
Green Party 8.2 (-0.1)

Total: 44.9 (Election 2006: 46.1)

Sweden Democrats 4.7 (+0.3)
Others 2.0 (-0.2)

Novus opinion/TV4’s poll results are based on interviews conducted with 2,000 people from August 31st to September 6th.

Novus/TV4 poll results, September 8th 2010 (changes since August 24th 2010 in parentheses)

Government
Moderate Party 31.2 (-0.6)
Centre Party 5.6 (+0.2)
Liberal Party 7.0 (-0.2)
Christian Democrats 5.6 (+1.0)

Total: 49.4 (Election 2006: 48.2)

Opposition
Social Democrats 27.3 (-3.0)
Left Party 7.7 (+2.5)
Green Party 8.9 (no change)

Total: 43.9 (Election 2006: 46.1)

Sweden Democrats 5.2 (+0.5)
Others 1.5 (-0.3)