Six parties cross swords during the second RTL television debate

Same time, same channel, same party leaders plus two new names. After the first RTL election debate last Sunday, the second part will follow tonight from 9:30 PM on RTL 4. Frans Timmermans (GroenLinks-PvdA), Henri Bontenbal (CDA), Dilan Yesilgöz (VVD) and Rob Jetten (D66) will again make an appearance, supplemented by Joost Eerdmans of JA21 and SP leader Jimmy Dijk.

Just like last week, it will be a debate without PVV leader Geert Wilders, the leader in the polls. Wilders previously canceled this second RTL debate, he canceled the first debate last week when his name was mentioned in a terror case in Belgium.

That first debate last week was overshadowed by the threat to Wilders, and also the insult to Frans Timmermans at a café in Amsterdam, for which a 32-year-old man has now been arrested. With a week and a half to go until the elections, tonight’s second RTL debate will kick off the final phase of the campaign. There is a lot at stake for the parties, because… research by Ipsos I&O showed this week that only 17 percent of voters have made a choice. Major shifts in the polls may therefore occur in the final weeks of the campaign, as happened in the 2023 elections.

Although the PVV is leading in the polls, Wilders’ party is losing compared to the current 37 parliamentary seats and a slightly further downward trend is now visible. GroenLinks-PvdA and the CDA will hope that they can still become the largest party and even D66 expressed that ambition on Saturday. Although the electoral gap between D66 and the PVV is still large, Rob Jetten’s party is on the rise in the polls. These polls have also been good for Joost Eerdmans’ JA21 for a long time, who will be conducting his first major TV debate. For Jimmy Dijk, Wilders’ cancellation is an opportunity, because the SP is not doing so well in the polls.

The three main themes of tonight’s RTL debate are care, migration and housing. The theme of healthcare was not discussed last week, but has suddenly become an urgent political issue because many parties want to cut back on it to finance higher defense expenditure.

Zoom in