Pols in sync on main theme of Denmark’s national day: starts with "T"
A need for “spiritual armament” in a world “turned upside down,” while the right wing buries its quarrels to look like a credible alternative
A birthday party with polls attached
Constitution Day 2025, 176 years after Denmark abolished absolute monarchy, offers a chance to take stock of the political landscape. As per tradition, party leaders spread out across the Kingdom to declaim at bandstands, tents, and sausage grills. Amid the calls for patriotism and solidarity, ePinion kindly supplied fresh polling numbers to help them snipe at one another and jockey for position in the next election.
The ruling trio: the centrist compromise sputters along
Since the 2022 vote, the SVM coalition has slid from 50.1 percent to 34.6 percent support. But no one expects a snap election because they don’t know what’s coming next as both wings try to peel off defectors.
Call to action: Lay down your phones
Social Democrats (21.1 percent; -6.4 from 2022): Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has gotten a boost from Trump’s sabre-rattling in the role of crisis leader that she enjoyed during Covid. She called for “spiritual armament” (åndelig oprustning—sounds slightly less strange in Danish) not only against his “unacceptable pressure” on Greenland but also against fake news and the screen addiction that is handicapping the critical abilities the younger generation needs to preserve democracy.
Mobilization by video link
The Liberals (9.4 percent; -3.9): Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen sent a clip from a NATO meeting, promising an air-defense shield “next year”—which in Danish politics means “before Ragnarök”—and warned former conscripts to be on standby. Deputy Chair Stephanie Lose, on-site, scolded the US for back-stabbing and reminded people of “everything that we have built together in our country,” such as the hundred-plus measures for which the administration has gathered broad support.
Technocrat in free fall
The Moderates (4.1 percent; -5.2): Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, undaunted by his 61 percent disapproval rating, pushed for easier work visas, floated a constitutional tweak to give Danes abroad permanent voting rights, and confessed pride in being part of “an unusually strange administration” in uncertain times—a slogan his spin-doctors might come to regret.
Right-wing jamboree in Jutland
Four parties of the Right held a joint pep rally at Testrup Folk High School, hoping unity photos would erase memories of recent knife fights.
Citizenship with a loyalty oath
Denmark’s Democrats (9.5 percent; +1.4): Inger Støjberg proposed a 10-year probation for new citizens, expulsion for serious crimes, and ideological screening that includes affirming Israel’s right to exist. Nothing says “welcome” like a pop quiz on the Middle East.
The zombie revives
Danish People’s Party (7.6 percent; +5.0): Morten Messerschmidt, who has yanked DF from the brink of parliamentary erasure, blasted the SVM for incompetence and Løkke for selling out, and then turned around and praised Denmark, in contrast to neighboring Sweden and Germany, for respecting differences of opinion and conducting civil debate.
TikTok populism meets Ayn Rand
Liberal Alliance (11.7 percent; +3.8): Alex Vanopslagh, who rallied younger voters online in 2022, emerged from parental leave to make a pitch for a “bourgeois” government, cracking
We can combine Inger's popular appeal, Mona's business experience, Morten's sharp tongue, and my youthfulness. And then we just have to pray to our Lord that we don't get Inger's youthfulness, Mona's sharp tongue, Morten's popular appeal, and my professional experience.
Gen Z fans wondered who Mona is.
Told you so
Conservatives (5.4 percent; -0.1): Mona Juul—that Mona—reminded everyone that her party had pleaded for higher defense spending long before Putin and Trump made it trendy. What she lacks in followers she made up for in principles: Slamming the Quran-burning ban—“kneeling to Islamic forces”—and a surveillance bill letting the intelligence agency rummage through citizens’ data. Think Margaret Thatcher in a bike helmet.
Left lane, off-ramp from Atlanticism
The other side skipped the group hug but shared a broader outlook on geopolitical brinksmanship.
Brussels über alles
Social Liberals (4.1 percent; +0.3): Martin Lidegaard, noting that Denmark is also celebrating the 80th anniversary of its liberation from Nazi Occupation, wants deeper EU integration because even after Trump is gone, we won’t “return to a situation where the USA is our security guarantee.”
Social democracy’s true safeguard
Socialist People’s Party (14.3 percent; +6.0): Pia Olsen Dyhr, by far the most popular party leader, who has been siphoning voters from Mette’s wobbling flagship, called for an alliance of the dwindling number of countries that “continue to believe in democracy, equality, and freedom of expression.”
America is dead, long live windmills
The Alternative (2.8 percent; -0.5): Franciska Rosenkilde quoted Danish rockers Minds of 99—“America is dead”—and, desperate to salvage enough votes to stay in Christianborg, reeled off the longest list of Trumpian casualties that need a protector:
freedom, freethinking, feminism, antiracism, universities, democratic institutions, people, transgender people, homosexuals, and women's right to decide over their own bodies.
Which way on Gaza?
Red-Greens (7.5 percent; +2.3): Pelle Dragsted slammed the government for decrying Russian bombs while exporting weapons parts to Israel. Last year he nearly split the party by defending Israel’s early Gaza response. Will this qualified U-turn bring back some internal critics when radicals hold the strongest grudges?
The debate that wasn’t
Custom dictates an evening TV brawl among party leaders. The SVM chairs skipped it, demonstrating that when you’re polling at 34 percent, you’re safer preaching to the choir. Both sides of the Opposition could agree that a change was needed.
Takeaways, the State of the Realm
The coalition is bleeding support, yet it survives on the one consensus left in Danish politics: loathing Donald Trump.
The right’s photo-op alliance looks sturdy until someone mentions EU farm quotas.
The left is betting on a post-American Europe, but first they’ll need to agree on whether NATO is a shield or an imperial relic.
Spiritual armament or spiritual aspirin?
Frederiksen urges mental readiness, Poulsen orders missiles, Juul defends free speech, Støjberg drafts loyalty tests. Behind the pyrotechnics lurks the stubborn fact that Denmark must rearm both its military and its economy, the latter preferably with foreign workers who don’t despise its democracy. Constitution Day ends with flag-waving and polite applause, yet the real test begins the next morning when pollsters phone the undecided and ask if they’re feeling spiritually armed.
“What about climate change, the risk of nuclear war, and P(doom)?” they’ll retort. “And who’s going to bring back Great Prayer Day?”
Seems like the winners are o the opposite extremes, DF and SF