How to watch Denmark’s elections like a pro

Danes head to the polls on Tuesday, with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen having called early parliamentary elections after her ruling Social Democrats received a big boost from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Frederiksen could have waited until October 2026 to call the vote, but moved early after standing up to Trump’s aggressive threats to annex Greenland earlier this year. Her defiance generated a surge of support for the party just months after it suffered a historic defeat in local elections last October. 

But foreign policy won’t carry the day in this election. Voters are focused on domestic issues, while Denmark’s fracturing coalition government — with two other party leaders challenging the prime minister — has turned Tuesday’s vote into a cliffhanger. 

What will decide the vote? 

While Denmark may have come together to resist the pressure from the White House, voters are most concerned about what’s happening at home. Ahead of the vote Danish parties debated a plethora of divisive issues, none of which proved decisive. A poll published by Epinion on Monday suggested almost one in five Danes still didn’t know who they’d vote for.  

Everything suggests that Frederiksen’s center-left party, the Social Democrats, will prevail in the vote. Her big talking point has been the revival of a wealth tax that hasn’t been enforced in Denmark for 30 years, and whose reinstatement would thrill left-wing voters. But her main challenger, Deputy Prime Minister Troels Lund Poulsen, leader of the center-right Venstre party, argues the measure will prompt the richest Danes to emigrate, weakening the country’s competitiveness. 

Politicians have also debated whether to reinstate the country’s “Great Prayer Day” holiday that Frederiksen’s government abolished in 2024, or to step up efforts to clean polluted drinking water, improve animal welfare, lift the ban on nuclear power, increase defense spending, and tighten migration rules.  

Red or blue? 

Denmark’s political spectrum has long been divided between a red bloc of left-leaning parties and a blue bloc on the right. In 2022, however, Frederiksen broke with tradition by forming a broad centrist government. The current coalition brings together her Social Democrats with the conservative Venstre party and the liberal Moderates led by former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen. 

Polls suggest the red and blue blocs are running almost even, with Rasmussen’s Moderates poised to play kingmaker. Support for the red bloc currently translates into 83 seats, while the blue bloc would get 80 — with 90 seats needed for a parliamentary majority. With Frederiksen and Poulsen heading in different directions politically, a repeat of the current coalition government appears unlikely.  

That means Rasmussen will likely decide which direction the country goes in if the elections transpire as forecast. Frederiksen has warned that if Rasmussen doesn’t decide to work with her, “then we will, with a very high possibility, get a right-wing government in Denmark.” 

Rasmussen has removed himself from contention to become the next prime minister, and has offered instead to mediate the formation of the incoming government.

Cocaine-gate 

In the leadup to the vote, the blue bloc’s largest party, the Liberal Alliance, sparked a media frenzy after leader Alex Vanopslagh — a candidate for PM — admitted to using cocaine during his early days as party leader in the mid-2010s. Some 42 percent of Danes said the 34-year-old politician’s drug use had left them less able to see him as the country’s leader.  

The parties in the blue bloc have thrown their support behind Venstre’s Poulsen. But with the Liberal Alliance primed to win the most votes on the right, Vanopslagh is insisting the party should be the one to lead if Denmark ends up with a conservative government. 

Liberal Alliance leader Alex Vanopslagh arrives for a debate in Copenhagen on Feb. 26, 2026. | Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images

At the same time, he says, he won’t stand in Poulsen’s way. “It won’t be me who ends up derailing a right-wing alliance after the election,” Vanopslagh said on Sunday. 

Greenland in the spotlight 

For all the domestic focus, Greenland still has a key role to play in Denmark’s election — just not the one you might expect. Greenland and Denmark’s other autonomous territory, the Faroe Islands, each hold two seats in the country’s parliament, and those could prove decisive given how tight the race is.  

That could prove a major obstacle for a right-leaning government. According to Lasse Lindegaard, Greenland correspondent at public broadcaster DR, those who represent the islands would be highly unlikely “to back a government that includes or relies on support from the [far-right] Danish People’s Party,” whose leader Morten Messerschmidt has dismissed the idea of Greenland’s independence as “immature and absurd.” 

Then there’s the Faroe Islands, which will hold their own parliamentary election just two days after Denmark. Politicians in both self-governing territories are questioning whether to scrap the requirement that they send representatives to the Danish parliament. 

“We should enter negotiations with Denmark on an equal partnership — and at that point, we would no longer need our seats in the Danish parliament,” said Beinir Johannesen, leader of the Fólkaflokkurin party and a likely contender for prime minister of the Faroe Islands.

The logistics 

Polls in Denmark open at 8 a.m. on Tuesday and close at 8 p.m. The country uses a proportional representation system, meaning the number of seats that parties win is proportional to their share of the national vote. Exit polls will be published shortly after the polls close, but given how close the race is a definitive outcome may not be clear until late Tuesday evening after all votes have been counted, or even early Wednesday morning.  

Then comes the hard part: forming a government. With the two sides so closely matched, the process will almost certainly take weeks. Denmark’s next government is certain to be a coalition, but whether it commands majority or minority support in the parliament remains to be seen.

The latter scenario has been the norm in Denmark for decades, but often produces weak prime ministers who must constantly seek the support of other parties under the threat of no-confidence motions.