Sweden votes with the blocs inside the pollsters' error

Polling stations across Sweden opened at 08:00 local time on Sunday, 13 September. By then more than three million people had already voted. About 8 million of the country's 10.5 million residents are eligible. Turnout in 2022 was 84 percent. This time the early vote is large enough that a late swing on election day may not decide the chamber.

The Riksdag has 349 seats. A majority is 175. Swedes also elect 20 regional councils and 290 municipal councils on the same day. Stations close at 20:00. SVT plans an exit poll at close and a first read once about 10 percent of the count is in, around 21:15. If the result sits inside a few thousand votes, the Election Authority, Valmyndigheten, may not certify a winner before Wednesday, 16 September.

Two blocs, a four-percent line

Sweden runs two informal blocs. The left is led by Magdalena Andersson of the Social Democrats. The right is led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of the Moderate Party, whose Tidö government has governed since October 2022 with confidence-and-supply from the Sweden Democrats.

An Ekot poll published Friday put the left at 50.8 percent and the right at 47.6 percent. Ipsos, Demoskop and Indikator Opinion, in surveys released in the same window, put the left between 49.3 and 50.8 percent and the governing camp plus the Sweden Democrats between 47.6 and 49 percent. A Friday poll cited by Euractiv cut the gap to 0.4 points, inside the margin of error. In August the left lead was about eight points.

A four-poll average compiled on election morning by Valprognos 2026 put the Social Democrats at 28.0 percent (99 seats), the Sweden Democrats at 19.4 percent (69), the Moderates at 17.6 percent (62), the Centre Party at 8.1 percent (29), the Left Party at 7.5 percent (27), the Christian Democrats at 6.6 percent (23), the Greens at 6.5 percent (23) and the Liberals at 4.7 percent (17). Majority is 175. Those numbers are a forecast, not a count.

The Liberals sat under the 4 percent threshold through August, between 1.9 and 3.3 percent. In the final week they cleared it in eight published polls, between 4.3 and 5.8 percent, averaging about 5.0. Gustav Karreskog Rehbinder, who runs SVT's night forecast, said two or three weeks ago the race looked settled. It is not.

What Kristersson has put on the table

Kristersson has said that if he remains prime minister he will offer cabinet posts to the Sweden Democrats. The party, led by Jimmie Åkesson, took 73 seats in 2022. It has neo-Nazi origins in the 1980s and spent a decade outside formal government while still shaping migration, crime and welfare policy from outside the cabinet table. Putting SD ministers in the government would be a first.

Andersson has pledged higher public spending. Crime, gang shootings, welfare costs and NATO membership, which Sweden completed after the 2022 election, have dominated the late campaign. The country is NATO's newest member and the first nationwide vote since accession.

The 2022 result, certified by Valmyndigheten, was Social Democrats 107, Sweden Democrats 73, Moderates 68, Left 24, Centre 24, Christian Democrats 19, Greens 18, Liberals 16. That chamber produced the Tidö arrangement. Sunday tests whether that arrangement hardens into a formal coalition or whether Andersson returns as prime minister of a left minority or coalition.

How the count will work

Sweden uses a two-tier proportional system: 310 constituency seats and 39 adjustment seats. The national threshold is 4 percent. Parties that miss it still keep any constituency seats they win outright, which is rare. Early votes are mixed into the election-night count rather than reported as a separate pile, so the first percentages can move as boxes from large cities open.

If the Liberals fall back under 4 percent on the night, the right's seat math tightens fast. If they stay above it, Kristersson has a path that runs through Åkesson's party. Andersson's path runs through the Centre Party, which has spent the campaign trying to keep distance from both SD and the Left.

The constitution fixes ordinary elections for the second Sunday of September every four years. No government chose this date. The campaign calendar was known years in advance. What was not known until the last ten days was that the eight-point gap would close.

By Wednesday the seat table will be public. The question that will still be open is who can assemble 175 names willing to sit in the same cabinet.