Europe’s once-powerful Social Democratic parties have been losing steam for decades, a trend that continued in the recent European Parliament elections. In Germany, the party’s leader quit after particularly terrible results.
But in Denmark, the Social Democrats are holding their own and appear poised to take back the reins of government after Wednesday’s national election.
What’s their secret?
The last time Danes voted in parliamentary elections, in 2015, Europe’s migration crisis was at a boiling point. Support for the populist, anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party surged to 21%, a few percentage points behind the Social Democrats, but enough to help carry the current center-right coalition into power.
Many voters supporting the Danish People’s Party were former Social Democrats. On taking over as the Social Democrats’ new leader shortly thereafter, Mette Frederiksen gave a hint of what was to come: “I know that many Danes are worried about the future,” she said. “Worried about jobs, about open borders. About whether we can find a balance in immigration policy.”
In 2015, about 21,000 migrants sought asylum in Denmark, a number that has fallen dramatically every year since. But Denmark’s demographics have been changing for decades. According to government figures, in 1980 about 1% of Danish residents were of “non-Western background,” compared with 8.5% today.
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