Sweden’s final election polls show sharply different bloc gaps

Sweden’s final opinion polls before Sunday’s election show widely differing gaps between the Tidö parties and the opposition, SVT reported. The Liberals are above the parliamentary threshold in every poll.

“It is set up to be an exciting election weekend,” SVT political commentator Mats Knutson said.

The differences between the blocs vary considerably across the surveys released on Friday, the last polls before the election. Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson, an election researcher, said the size of the differences so close to election day was noteworthy.

“It is a very rapid change in just seven to 10 days. Some institutes show very dramatic shifts compared with earlier this week,” he said on the current affairs programme Aktuellt. He interpreted the changes as a major mobilisation of hesitant and undecided voters.

Different results in final polls

A poll by SR and Indikator, conducted from September 2 to 10, put the gap between the Tidö parties and the opposition at 3.2 percentage points.

In a DN and Ipsos poll conducted from September 7 to 10, the gap was 0.3 percentage points. A TV4 and Novus poll from the same period showed a gap of 3 percentage points.

SVT and Verian’s poll, conducted from September 4 to 10, showed a gap of 5.6 percentage points.

The Liberals’ position above the parliamentary threshold marks a major change from just a few weeks ago.

“When opinion polls show that a party is gaining strongly, that tends to mobilise more people. People often say that it is more enjoyable to vote for a winner than a loser,” Knutson said.

However, he said the Liberals could not yet be certain of clearing the threshold. Although all the current polls show a strong upward trend, support votes for the party could fall if voters believe it is already certain to enter parliament.

No more polls will be published before election day. The preliminary election result will be presented after polling stations close at 8pm on Sunday.

“It will be a much more exciting contest than we thought two weeks ago,” Ekengren Oscarsson said, noting that half of voters had not yet voted.