Local Swedish Elections

At the same time as the national election, Sweden holds its more local level elections. I wasn't planning on making a post about them, but something about them intrigued me. While the Social Democrats did poorly during the national election, they seemed to hold up pretty well in local elections, even gaining seats in many cases. So I decided to look more closely.

Sweden is divided into 21 län (plus Gotland which doesn't count as a län because its population is too small). Each län has its own government called a landsting. Looking at the results for the landsting elections, I found that on average the Social Democrats lost 1.1% of the vote, which isn't great, but is far better than the 4.3% they lost in national elections.

The Moderates gained the most in the landsting elections, averaging a 3% gain in each län, but their victory is tempered by the fact that their partners in the Alliance lost a huge share of the vote. Notably, the Center Party and the Christian Democrats lost voters in every single län while the People's Party only made modest gains in 3, losing voters in the other 18. As a whole, the Alliance only managed to make gains in 4 län despite the Moderates' success.

On the other hand, while the Social Democrats and the Left didn't do well, the Greens made gains greater than both of their loses, so the Red-Greens made gains in 11 län. Like the Moderates, the Greens increased their share of the vote in every single län.

Change in share of the votes:

Län	Alliance	Red-Green
Blekinge	-2.09%	-2.74%
Dalarnas	-2.55%	0.44%
Gävleborgs	-2.31%	0.16%
Hallands	0.05%	-1.29%
Jämtlands	-3.29%	0.80%
Jönköpings	-1.86%	-0.44%
Kalmar	-2.57%	0.93%
Kronobergs	-1.56%	-0.84%
Norrbottens	-1.92%	1.34%
Skåne	-0.24%	-1.92%
Stockholms	-1.26%	0.95%
Södermanlands	-0.99%	-2.35%
Uppsala	-3.26%	2.35%
Värmlands	0.43%	-0.17%
Västerbottens	-3.07%	2.44%
Västernorrlands	0.90%	-2.69%
Västmanlands	-3.39%	2.72%
Västra Götalands	-1.44%	-1.13%
Örebro	-2.21%	1.20%
Östergötlands	0.01%	2.79%

You may notice that in many of the län, both coalitions lost votes, this is largely because of the Sweden Democrats, which doesn't belong to either coalition, gaining a greater share of the votes. Also, many of the län have local Health Care Parties. health care in Sweden is handled at the local level, so these parties do not operate at the national level. Most of them did poorly this election, but some did make gains.

Relative to each other, the Red-Greens made gains over the Alliance in 14 of the 21 län. So at a local level, the election was a victory for the Red-Greens.