It is hardly the first time that Morten Messerschmidt of Dansk Folkeparti has emerged as the top vote-getter in an election. He did so in 2014 as well, when he shattered records in the European Parliament election with 465,758 votes. That was good for him and for those he hauled in with him, but it was also a telling harbinger of what happened in Danish politics the following year: DF, then led by Kristian Thulesen Dahl, had a blockbuster parliamentary election with 21.1 percent of the vote and became the largest party on the center-right.
The figure 465,758 in 2014 mattered to a young Morten Messerschmidt, but 50,819 matters even more to the more seasoned party leader. He has positioned DF strategically, and while DF is nowhere near what it was in the early 2010s, peaking in 2015, it is on its way back. And the political system is in flux. That suits parties like DF.
Voters are drifting away from the old parties of power. They did so in the 2015 general election, and Tuesday’s vote shows even stronger tendencies in that direction.
The final parallel to 2015 is that, this time too, a particular geographic area has been colored yellow. Back then it was South and Southern Jutland; this time it is southern and western Zealand. DF has moved eastward, which is why Morten Messerschmidt, naturally, ran in the country’s largest constituency, the Zealand constituency. And he not only beat the sitting prime minister, Mette Frederiksen (S), but also Inger Støjberg (DD) of Danmarksdemokraterne, who has otherwise made the rural agenda and agriculture the party’s DNA. A DNA Messerschmidt is happy to share with Støjberg.
The other juicy morsel in the election result, as Messerschmidt sees it, is that he beat Lars Løkke Rasmussen (M) — also in the Zealand constituency — by more than 16,000 personal votes.
That suits Messerschmidt perfectly, because he has chosen Lars Løkke as his foil. It was clear again when the parties met for a debate at Publicistklubben on Wednesday morning and Messerschmidt offered Løkke a deal: that they should both refrain from entering government and instead make Troels Lund Poulsen prime minister. Løkke, of course, did not bite. It was a cost-free move for Messerschmidt. His chances of joining a government are microscopic, while Løkke’s are large, and so it was close to a free offer Messerschmidt put on the table.
Farewell to Skaarup
But that at least showed he was acting in good faith after an election where almost everything else went DF’s way. The ’free petrol’ campaign really struck a chord, and so did DF’s push for cheaper groceries. It was very down-to-earth, very close to everyday concerns—and a long way from the global issues Løkke and Mette Frederiksen are dealing with on Denmark’s behalf.
So DF’s comeback is much more about the soaring cost of food and fuel, and about rural and peripheral areas that feel let down by the big cities. That was also the agenda that made DF big in 2015 and helped kick-start the relocation of government jobs. Messerschmidt initially kept all of that at arm’s length—including the rural/periphery agenda, which felt too closely associated with Thulesen Dahl—but now he’s embraced it. And he’s managed to bring it home in the provincial hinterlands of Zealand.
So tight that this time it cost DD’s Peter Skaarup—formerly of DF—his seat. That’s how firmly DF has its grip on eastern Denmark.
In a number of municipalities on Zealand, they’re polling in double digits, and several of the places that swapped a Social Democrat mayor for a centre-right one last autumn were, at the general election, painted DF yellow. Elsewhere on Zealand, it’s been traditional Venstre strongholds that have had to give way to DF.
It makes it abundantly clear that the 2026 election became a real watershed—one in which the old parties haemorrhaged voters to newer ones, and where much suggests the era of the big catch‑all parties is coming to an end.
The election results for Socialdemokratiet and Venstre are clear proof of that.
No lower limit
The days of the big, dominant people’s parties are over—parties like Socialdemokratiet, who held that position for generations, and Venstre, which did so at times before blowing itself apart into three. They were the election’s biggest losers. Venstre now seems to have a pain threshold of 10 per cent, while Socialdemokratiet have set theirs at 20—nowhere near the 46 per cent Thorvald Stauning won in 1935, or the 37.4 per cent the late Svend Auken won in 1990.
That era is finished. And this election only reinforced the shift, fuelled by DF’s comeback—and not least by Morten Messerschmidt’s striking personal vote. On Lolland, where DF won 15.4 per cent, Socialdemokratiet fell by 10–15 points.
It is a development we have seen across Europe, where social democratic parties have fallen one by one. So it is not, as such, a surprise to Socialdemokratiet’s leadership at home. Mette Frederiksen used the phrase that power wears you down, and that governing parties most often lose ground. Historically, that is correct. But it does not change the fact that there are structural factors that mean Socialdemokratiet are, indeed, Denmark’s largest party.
As a senior Social Democrat said the other day, in a quiet moment — off the record, naturally — there is no lower limit for the party. Or for other parties, for that matter.
So there will no longer be any automatic claim to the prime minister’s office—the birthright Venstre and Socialdemokratiet have treated as theirs for years. This election won’t change that overnight, but in Denmark it could shift quickly. It already has across the rest of Europe.
All signs therefore point to us eventually getting a prime minister who is neither a Social Democrat nor from Venstre—perhaps from SF, perhaps from Liberal Alliance.
Perhaps from DF. Or from Moderaterne.
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