Here are the top flashpoints in the municipal race

A political thriller is unfolding in the nation’s capital, where Socialdemokratiet have always held power but cannot be certain this time. At the last municipal election, the party received a historically poor result in Copenhagen and, for the first time ever, was not the largest party.

Since then, Socialdemokratiet – largely due to Mette Frederiksen’s involvement – have changed their lead candidate and put Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil at the helm. She is a seasoned politician with ministerial experience, who has run a tough campaign, delivering political messages at a breathless pace.

The question is whether other parties at City Hall will help her gain power or if they believe it’s time for a new party to lead.

The major wildcard at City Hall is Green Left - Socialistisk Folkeparti (SF), which has surged ahead in both nationwide and local polls for the capital since the last municipal election – and in the European Parliament elections in June 2024, achieved a better result than Socialdemokratiet for the first time.

SF’s lead candidate, 39-year-old Sisse Marie Welling, has declared that she is ready to take the position of Lord Mayor. With 16 years of experience at City Hall, including the last eight as the Mayor of Health and Care, she is well-established and knows the other politicians intimately. That could be crucial on election night.

In the 2021 municipal election, history was made in Frederiksberg when the Conservatives lost power for the first time in 117 years.

In fact, the party gained ground compared to four years earlier, but since the Danish Social Liberal Party (Radikale Venstre) had switched sides and no longer supported the Conservatives, the Social Democrat Michael Vindfeldt became mayor.

For the Conservatives, reclaiming Frederiksberg is a clear ambition – within the core of the party, Frederiksberg is considered a stronghold.

It was by a hair’s breadth that the Social Democrats secured power last time, and it will likely be decimal points that determine where power lands this time as well.

After the defeat four years ago, the outgoing mayor, Simon Aggesen, chose to leave politics, and this time the Conservatives are presenting an untested lead candidate. Michael Brautsch, known from TV as the priest in previous seasons of ’Gift ved første blik’ (’Married at First Sight’), only joined the Conservative party shortly before the 2021 municipal election and received 491 votes at that election, securing him the Conservatives’ 12th seat on the municipal council.

Despite this, he was chosen in 2023 as the party’s lead candidate. At the same time, he took over the position of 2nd Deputy Mayor of Frederiksberg. For the past two years, he has been on leave from his pastoral duties to dedicate himself to political work ahead of the municipal election in November.

Social Democrat Steen Christiansen had accepted that the mayoral position was lost after nine years when he parked his car at home on election night in 2021. But then his phone rang. The four parties – Venstre (Liberal Party), Konservative (Conservatives), Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People’s Party), and Enhedslisten (Red-Green Alliance) – which had just united to give SF (Green Left) the mayoral seat, now offered Steen Christiansen the chance to continue:

»A very, very strong experience. I find myself in a situation where I am no longer going to be mayor, and I am deeply affected by that. There’s no reason to hide it«, Christiansen later told DR, where he also explained that he had few reservations about accepting the offer:

»If a broad coalition of parties representing the municipal council comes and offers you the mayoral seat, you’d be foolish not to engage in that discussion«.

The offer from the four parties was an act of revenge against SF’s Vivi Nøhr Jakobsen, whom they had pointed to as mayor just hours earlier. But then Vivi Nøhr Jakobsen informed the parties that she had instead made an agreement with the Social Liberals (Radikale Venstre) and the Social Democrats. This did not go unpunished, and Vivi Nøhr Jakobsen only held the mayoral chain for two hours and 17 minutes before she had to return it to the Social Democrats and Steen Christiansen.

Both are running in this municipal election, where everything is up in the air – the desire for change in the mayor’s office is still strong among the parties that last time pointed to SF, and the drama from four years ago shows that nothing is certain when it comes to forming coalitions in Albertslund.

In Roskilde, the Conservative People’s Party’s long-time member of parliament and former minister, Rasmus Jarlov, has announced his candidacy for mayor. It is optimistic, but not inconceivable, that he could succeed.

Socialdemokratiet are overwhelmingly strong in Roskilde, but four years ago, the party saw a significant decline while the Conservatives surged forward and secured three seats on the city council. One of these members has since switched to the Moderaterne.

Roskilde has previously had mayors from both the Liberal Party (Venstre) and the Social Liberals (Radikale), and as far back as 1919, there was even a Conservative mayor. Perhaps a familiar face can shake things up in Roskilde?

Social Democrat Anne Madsen laughed and smiled as she presented the coalition agreement on election night in 2021 that made her the new mayor after eight years of conservative rule. But four days later, she had to acknowledge that the majority supporting her had vanished, as DF member Lars Schmidt had changed his mind and instead backed the Conservatives.

Conservative mayor Gert Jørgensen has been through several scandals during the term and has decided not to run as mayoral candidate but only for a seat as a regular council member.

The Conservatives’ new top candidate is none other than Lars Schmidt—the DF member who switched sides four years ago and cheated S out of the mayoral post. Since then, he has switched parties and will be competing for the mayoral chain against Anne Madsen from S, who surely hasn’t forgotten election night from four years ago. K and S are almost evenly matched in the council, so the outcome is uncertain.

The unpredictability is total in Stevns, where the Liberal Party (V) and Socialdemokratiet (S) received almost the same number of votes four years ago. Despite a narrow conservative majority, it was Socialdemokratiet who clinched the mayoral seat after a dramatic election night, where for a long time it seemed the Conservatives would take power, even though the party is significantly smaller at the town hall compared to both S and V.

When the Liberal Party’s lead candidate, Anette Mortensen, was asked during the presentation of the coalition agreement why it ended up with a Social Democrat mayor, she said the negotiations had »taken a turn«.

When journalists asked her what that meant, she explained that the prospect of the Conservatives getting the mayoral seat had led her to offer it to the Social Democrats.

Adding to the unpredictability in Stevns is that Martin Henriksen from Nye Borgerlige (New Right) is not running again. In the last election, he received 600 votes, which is a substantial number in a small municipality. Where those votes go could be decisive.

A new factor in this municipal election is the emergence of Moderaterne (Moderates) and Danmarksdemokraterne (Denmark Democrats), who did not exist in local politics four years ago. In Ringkøbing-Skjern, this could potentially shake up the balance of power, where the Liberal Party currently holds a strong position with 11 out of the 29 council seats.

Danmarksdemokraterne are fielding a strong lead candidate in the form of Member of Parliament Mads Fuglede, who has announced his ambition to become mayor and will fight for fewer fields with solar panels and wind turbines, and more young families in the municipality. He has a background in the Liberal Party but switched to Danmarksdemokraterne in March last year.

It is already clear that the party is well-established in the municipality, where 17 percent of voters chose Inger Støjberg’s party in the 2021 parliamentary election. For the Liberal Party, the new mayoral candidate Lone Andersen will take up the challenge, as the current mayor, 67-year-old Hans Østergaard, is stepping down due to age.

There are conflict-ridden city councils – and then there’s Randers, where six council members have changed parties so many times during this term that they collectively account for 31 party switches.

In the Conservative group, internal conflicts have been so severe that all four of the mandates elected in 2021 have left the party, resulting in the Conservatives no longer being represented on the council.

The Social Democrats—the largest group at city hall and holders of the mayor’s office—have also been riven by conflict. Last year, sitting mayor Torben Hansen was challenged for the lead candidate spot by fellow party member Anker Boje, who lost and then left the party.

»It’s no secret that a small group of us in the party have felt frozen out and unheard. The mood has been bad for a long time, and I don’t think it’s improved since I lost the vote,« Boje later told TV 2 Østjylland.

The numerous party switches in Randers have led to situations such as Moderaterne having a mandate on the council, but in September, the party decided to expel their council member, Jens Peter Hansen, due to »repeated collaboration difficulties.«

Socialdemokratiet remains the strongest party in Randers, but the ongoing conflicts make it difficult to predict the outcome on election night.

One of the major surprises at the last municipal elections unfolded in Kolding, where a clash was anticipated between two former ministers, Villy Søvndal (SF) and Eva Kjer Hansen (V), both vying for the mayoral seat.

They secured plenty of votes but were left empty-handed when the Conservative candidate, Knud Erik Langhoff, managed to form a coalition with SF, Socialdemokratiet, and Radikale Venstre, thus securing the mayoral position that Venstre had previously held.

Knud Erik Langhoff is running again but not as a mayoral candidate. The new lead candidate for the Conservatives is Christina Foldager. (It was previously incorrectly stated that Knud Erik Langhoff was the lead candidate). However, Venstre, the largest party in the city council, aims to reclaim the mayoral position. The man to make that happen is 43-year-old Jakob Ville, who works as a school principal.

At the last two municipal elections, one candidate has outshone all others in Viborg – namely the Liberal Party’s Ulrik Wilbek, who in 2021 received over 8,000 personal votes and secured more than one-third of the votes for the Liberal Party in Viborg. However, last year the former national handball coach announced that he would not be running again. Being mayor is a ’crazy tough job,’ he explained to Viborg Folkeblad:

»I’m the kind of person who goes all in and gets completely consumed, because I want to do as much for Viborg Municipality as I possibly can,« he said.

The Conservatives are also strong in Viborg and hope that Wilbek’s departure will provide an opportunity to reclaim the mayoral chain, which the party held from 2010 to 2017.

The party’s lead candidate is 34-year-old Stine Damborg, who, in addition to being a member of the city council, has been the second vice chairman in the Central Denmark Region for the past four years. The Liberals’ new mayoral candidate is 48-year-old Katrine Fusager Rohde, who is running on a platform that includes attracting more tourists to Viborg.

Close but no cigar. That must be the feeling among the Conservatives in Kerteminde, who, in the last two municipal elections, have received more votes than any other party—actually, every third vote in the municipality—but still haven’t managed to secure the mayoral seat. Primarily because DF’s single mandate pointed towards S.

This time, the Conservatives have changed their lead candidate and hope that this can translate into a mayoral seat.

Social Democrat Kasper Ejsing Olesen will be fighting to retain power—he can’t be sure of his position. Partly because, during the election period, the Social Democrats excluded a council member who then founded their own local list. The member claimed the mayor had lied about an issue concerning a roadside stall.

Just like in Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Aalborg, Socialdemokratiet saw a significant setback in Odense during the 2021 municipal elections, raising the question of whether this election will continue the downward trend.

In Odense, once again, the Social Democratic mayor since 2017, Peter Rahbæk Juel, is the party’s candidate for mayor. This time, he faces a formidable challenger in Lars Christian Lilleholt, the lead candidate for the Liberal Party, who brings years of experience from the Danish Parliament and a former ministerial position – and who, incidentally, takes over the role of lead candidate from his son.

Four years ago, the Liberal Party received significantly fewer votes in Odense compared to Socialdemokratiet. The question is what difference the new lead candidate will make, and how many mandates the conservative parties can collectively secure. In the last municipal election, the Conservative People’s Party made substantial gains – but at that time, the party also rode a wave of favorable nationwide polls thanks to a popular Søren Pape Poulsen.

Both in Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Aalborg, Socialdemokratiet are fielding new top candidates who aim to secure a better election outcome than four years ago.

In Aalborg, it’s 39-year-old Lasse Frimand Jensen, son of Copenhagen’s former Lord Mayor, Frank Jensen, who is tasked with winning back some of the lost voters. He took over the mayoral chains mid-term from fellow party member Thomas Kastrup-Larsen, who faced several controversies in the press before taking a month-long leave due to stress in 2022.

Aalborg may be a Social Democratic stronghold, but Lasse Frimand Jensen faces challenges from the municipality’s dire financial situation and the Conservative and SF, which made significant gains in the last local elections. The question is whether they will grow even larger this time.