Many voters in Norway will vote for a different party this year

Opinion polls suggest that one in four voters will vote for a different party this year compared to the previous parliamentary elections.

A total of 730,000 voters are now “switching” parties, according to an analysis by the Poll of Polls, which dived into the background figures of two national polls conducted last week. That means that a quarter of the roughly 2.9 million voters who voted in 2017 have already decided to vote for another party. 

In May, 620,000 voters changed party preferences. The total increased to 660,000 in June.

Unpredictable

“This is going to be a very unpredictable election,” Johan Giertsen at Poll of Polls told NTB.

“Who could have imagined the Center Party’s fall three weeks ago, or that in 24 hours we would get two national polls that show a majority for Labor, Socialist Left, Green, and Red? We might see surprising numbers on election night,” he said.

There is no doubt that many voters are switching election preferences, but this is nothing new, according to election researcher Bernt Aardal.

“There are often major changes during the election campaign,” he said, pointing out that previously 8-10% of voters, or over 200,000, have decided on election day itself.

“The shifts indicate that many are unsure. Nothing has been decided,” Aardal stated.

Election researcher Johannes Bergh believes that these shifts fall within what is expected.

“In 2017, half of the voters switched party preference during the election campaign,” he noted.

Center Party loses support

The fall of the Center Party seems to have become a clear trend just under three weeks before the election. In four out of five polls in recent weeks, the Center Party fell to between 11.3 and 13.2%, far from the support in December last year when the party climbed above the 20% mark by a good margin.

On the average for the measurements in August, the Center Party got 15.2%. In July, the average was 17.6%. But Aardal believes that the extent of the fall is an open question.

“Nobody knows what the Center Party will end up with on election day,” he said. He pointed out that media reports about the “collapse” and “cold shower” could just as easily mobilize voters than scare them away.

“The parties are very anxious that bad polls will affect voters. Some studies may indicate an infectious effect, while others do not show any such tendency. We have seen that it is possible for parties that are in a bad position to rebound,” Aardal said.

Climate parties soar

The Green Party, for its part, is continuing its march, gathering more and more voters from other parties. In total, the party attracted a net 61,000 voters last week, almost tripling from the weeks before.

The background figures also show that the Liberal Party is clearly above the threshold, according to Poll of Polls. This is not least due to the fact that Liberal Party leader Guri Melby has managed to get Liberal voters down from the fence and has attracted at least 15,000 voters from the “sofa” group.

From conservative to red-green

The conservative parties are still losing many voters to the red-green opposition. The figures indicate that a total of 156,000 voters have changed blocs. Most of these, 82,000, shifted to the Center Party.

At the same time, the bloc transitions have fallen somewhat from the previous weeks. According to the analysis for Poll of Polls, the Red Party has the most loyal voters. 71% of those who voted for the Red Party in 2017 will do the same this year. 

Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews

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