Although the PVV managed to attract fewer voters to the polls than in 2023, Geert Wilders’ party is still in the race to become the largest party. The deficit to D66 was reduced to several thousand votes in the early morning after election day. And then the final results from more than ten municipalities still have to come.
“It remains exciting until the last moment,” says Linda Bos, associate professor of political communication at the University of Amsterdam. “With radical right-wing voters, we know that there can always be a ‘curtain bonus’. So I am not sure that D66 will retain the lead.” At the same time, Bos concludes that the PVV voters from 2023 may have now made a different choice. “It is possible that Wilders’ voters ultimately chose money for their money or did not show up.”
The PVV is mainly holding out in municipalities where NSC did well two years ago. The PVV did less well at the time in these places, including in Twente, but the party now remains stable.
Or PVV members, for example, voted for the VVD, which has done much better than the polls showed in recent months. At least that is what Joost Smits of the Political Academy suspects: “The VVD has been campaigning in recent days with the slogan ‘VVD again’. It is quite possible that people who were unsure between PVV and VVD have thought exactly that.” Smits, who conducts research into voter behavior at polling station level, points out the overlap that exists between voter groups. “There are neighborhoods where people who are considering VVD know from their neighbors that they vote PVV.”
D66
Rob Jetten will be happy, his D66 party wins everywhere, slightly less than tripling. In this way, the party benefits from the losses of NSC, PVV and GroenLinks-PvdA. Looking at the map of the Netherlands, D66 has achieved the greatest successes in strong and highly urban areas: as far as the votes of the G4 have been counted, D66 wins convincingly there. But what is striking is that Jetten’s party is also doing well outside the Randstad this election year.
“D66’s win is thanks to Rob Jetten,” says Linda Bos. “He ran a very good campaign – very positive. The voters, we know from research, were done with conflicts and polarization. And Jetten managed not to become part of that.”
Fragmentation
Anyone who takes a look at the map showing where the parties are the largest will see, according to Smits, “many colors of parties.” It shows the further fragmentation of the political landscape in the Netherlands, says Katerina Manevska, political sociologist and senior lecturer in political science at Radboud University. “There is actually no longer a clear large bloc of parties that can govern the country together.”
This fragmentation has been going on for a long time. “A huge number of voters are switching parties,” says Manevska, who conducts research into the political undercurrent. “About ten years ago, then Prime Minister Rutte said ‘vision’ is a dirty word. This fits in with the development that clear principles and ideals have become less important for voters. Voters look at issues that they find important, and then at which party best suits how they view those issues themselves.”
These issues include, for example, the (restriction of) migration. “European surveys consistently show that voters there have not started to think significantly differently in recent decades,” says Manevska. “At the same time, we have been seeing for some time that voters have indeed started voting more right-wing. That is something we really need to investigate. Perhaps the surveys do not really provide a good picture of the social undercurrent.”
GroenLinks-PvdA
GroenLinks-PvdA loses everywhere; Precisely in the cities where the party has traditionally done well, voters are making a different choice this year. The party is still the largest in just over a handful of cities. Frans Timmermans has now stepped down as party leader.
Timmermans was not the right leader for GroenLinks-PvdA, thinks political scientist Katerina Manevska, who is not surprised about the party’s loss of seats. “In my analysis, such a party should now mainly rely on the younger generations. Young people are concerned about the climate and their security of existence. If you put someone there who still has the image of the old politics, it becomes very difficult.”
According to Smits, GroenLinks-PvdA is also struggling with the merger, which is experienced by part of the PvdA as a “GroenLinksization of the party”. This could also hinder the party when choosing a new party leader. Marjolein Moorman, until recently councilor for education in Amsterdam, is considered a strong candidate. “She was already that way when Timmermans was elected,” says Smits. “Only this is another PvdA member who will lead the merged party, while GroenLinks is the dominant partner.”
With the loss of GroenLinks-PvdA and the SP, the left bloc has become historically small, Manevska notes. “’Really left’ scores less than 20 percent.” She does not consider D66 to be on the left. “Certainly with the frame that the party has chosen in these elections, with the emphasis on the Dutch flag, D66 is clearly in the centre.” The rightward shift is a trend that has been going on for two decades, says Manevska: “That trend is now really continuing.”
Despite the much lower number of votes for GroenLinks-PvdA in these municipalities, the party remains the largest in Nijmegen and Wageningen. GL-PvdA is also the largest in Amsterdam, Culemborg, Diemen and Zutphen. In cities such as Utrecht, Rotterdam, The Hague and Nijmegen, GroenLinks-PvdA has lost, while D66 is doing well compared to the House of Representatives elections in 2023.
CDA
The CDA wins more votes across the country than in the 2023 elections. The party wins the most in the province of Overijssel; Compared to 2023, the CDA has increased 4.5 times in size. The growth is smallest in Friesland, it is the only province where the party has grown less than three times in size. This is also because the CDA did relatively well in this Protestant part of the Netherlands two years ago.
Under the leadership of Henri Bontenbal, the party wins relatively speaking the most in the municipalities where NSC lost the most compared to the previous elections – Dinkelland, Tubbergen, Wierden and Hellendoorn.
In absolute numbers, the CDA wins the most votes in large municipalities such as Rotterdam, Enschede and The Hague. These are also municipalities where NSC is losing significantly.
Yet the profit is smaller than the exit polls predicted in the last campaign weeks. “I think that Bontenbal has alienated a number of voters with his statements in Nieuwsuur,” explains Linda Bos. “Research shows that people find it important to care for the vulnerable. If, as a party leader, you say ‘as a gay teenager at a religious school you should go to another school’, you are completely abandoning someone. That is not a nice image.”
“Bontenbal got into trouble with his statements, but for him it was the honest story. In CDA, the C stands for Christian and conservative,” says Smits. “Ultimately it is a conservative party.”
Radical right
JA21 also benefits from NSC’s losses. The party led by Joost Eerdmans is doing better in these elections throughout the country – even in places where the PVV loses.
But on the map with the percentage of votes for JA21, Groningen and parts of Friesland and Drenthe stand out. Although there was also a YES21 vote, the share pales in comparison to the rest of the country. Eerdmans’ statements about resuming gas extraction in Groningen probably did not make him popular there.
“Joost Eerdmans was frequently in the news and conducted a positive campaign,” Bos reflects. “This probably made him an interesting alternative to Geert Wilders for many voters. We know from research that voters have doubts until the last moment, and that the attention for a party is then the most important deciding factor.”
The other party on the right flank, FVD, is growing much faster in rural municipalities than in urban areas. Apparently Lidewij de Vos (FVD) and Joost Eerdmans (JA21) appealed to voters in other parts of the country.
With the collaboration of Roos Liefting and Wouter van Loon.
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