Populist Sweden Democrats four points ahead of Moderates in new poll
The populist Sweden Democrats are now a full four percentage points ahead of the Moderates -- traditionally Sweden's biggest right-wing party -- in the first of the new daily polls from broadcaster SVT and Novus.
According to the SVT poll, the Sweden Democrats now have the support of 21.5 percent of voters, compared to 17.4 percent for the Moderates,.
"This sets out the playing field between now and the election," said Torbjörn Sjöström, Novus's chief executive, about the poll.
He stressed, however, that the new daily polls, which are based on just three days of interviews, would be more volatile than the polling agency's normal polls, but would also make it possible to better understand how opinion is swinging back and forth as the campaign progresses.
"You should see this as showing the score in a match which will not be finished until the whistle blows on election day," he said. "This doesn't say anything about the future. If you lead a match three-nil in the first half, you're in a good position, but you have not won."
The Sweden Democrats official Twitter account welcomed the poll as "a good start to the week".
"Now we're on a sprint for the last bit of the election campaign," it said. "The SVT Novus poll shows that we're starting to catch up with the Sossarna [The Social Democrats]. Welcome on board the victory train."
Bra start på veckan. Nu spurtar vi sista biten fram till valet!
SVT/Novus visar på att vi börjar komma ikapp sossarna! Välkommen ombord på segertåget. pic.twitter.com/684H5dTsjX
— Sverigedemokraterna (@sdriks) August 22, 2022
Figures on the economic right opposed to the Moderates' decision to try to take power with the support of the Sweden Democrats, used the poll to argue that rather than weakening the populist party, the strategy had strengthened it.
"If I was Ulf Kristersson, I would be extremely worried over today's Novus, to put it mildly," wrote Tove Hovemyr, from the Green liberal thinktank Fores. "It's going so well - this idea that if you get close to SD, both in mandate tactics and policy, it will become smaller. It's a small price to pay. Yeah, right."
Hade jag varit Ulf Kristersson hade jag varit väldigt bekymrad över dagens Novus, för att uttrycka mig milt.https://t.co/WQaIJ2aanA pic.twitter.com/tdVO13llR2
— Tove Hovemyr (@tovehovemyr) August 22, 2022
Sjöström also told SVT that there was a large margin of error in the poll, making it impossible to know for certain if the Sweden Democrats were as far ahead of the Moderates as they seemed to be.
"This survey shows that it is statistically certain that the Sweden Democrats would be bigger than the Moderates if there were an election today, but exactly how large that difference is is affected by the margin of error."
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According to the SVT poll, the Sweden Democrats now have the support of 21.5 percent of voters, compared to 17.4 percent for the Moderates,.
"This sets out the playing field between now and the election," said Torbjörn Sjöström, Novus's chief executive, about the poll.
He stressed, however, that the new daily polls, which are based on just three days of interviews, would be more volatile than the polling agency's normal polls, but would also make it possible to better understand how opinion is swinging back and forth as the campaign progresses.
"You should see this as showing the score in a match which will not be finished until the whistle blows on election day," he said. "This doesn't say anything about the future. If you lead a match three-nil in the first half, you're in a good position, but you have not won."
The Sweden Democrats official Twitter account welcomed the poll as "a good start to the week".
"Now we're on a sprint for the last bit of the election campaign," it said. "The SVT Novus poll shows that we're starting to catch up with the Sossarna [The Social Democrats]. Welcome on board the victory train."
Bra start på veckan. Nu spurtar vi sista biten fram till valet!
— Sverigedemokraterna (@sdriks) August 22, 2022
SVT/Novus visar på att vi börjar komma ikapp sossarna! Välkommen ombord på segertåget. pic.twitter.com/684H5dTsjX
Figures on the economic right opposed to the Moderates' decision to try to take power with the support of the Sweden Democrats, used the poll to argue that rather than weakening the populist party, the strategy had strengthened it.
"If I was Ulf Kristersson, I would be extremely worried over today's Novus, to put it mildly," wrote Tove Hovemyr, from the Green liberal thinktank Fores. "It's going so well - this idea that if you get close to SD, both in mandate tactics and policy, it will become smaller. It's a small price to pay. Yeah, right."
Hade jag varit Ulf Kristersson hade jag varit väldigt bekymrad över dagens Novus, för att uttrycka mig milt.https://t.co/WQaIJ2aanA pic.twitter.com/tdVO13llR2
— Tove Hovemyr (@tovehovemyr) August 22, 2022
Sjöström also told SVT that there was a large margin of error in the poll, making it impossible to know for certain if the Sweden Democrats were as far ahead of the Moderates as they seemed to be.
"This survey shows that it is statistically certain that the Sweden Democrats would be bigger than the Moderates if there were an election today, but exactly how large that difference is is affected by the margin of error."
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