Local parties, left-wing faction expected to make gains in city elections

Local parties and the left-wing are expected to make gains in the upcoming municipal elections next week, according to a poll by Ipsos I&O. Of the national parties, GroenLinks-PvdA is well positioned to become the largest. According to the researchers, local parties benefit particularly from national right-wing parties not being active in many municipalities.

In this election, 34.5 percent of voters said they would vote for a local party. In the 2022 elections, local parties won 31.2 percent of the vote. “The case for local parties to continue growing is therefore considerable,” the researchers said.

Of the national parties, GroenLinks-PvdA is the largest in the current poll, with 14.8 percent of voters saying the left-wing alliance would get their vote. Another 2.5 percent of voters said they would vote for either GroenLinks or PvdA, setting the left-wing alliance up to get 17.3 percent of the total vote, comparable to the 17.8 percent the parties received in 2022.

VVD (11.4%), D66 (8.7%), and CDA (8.6%) follow at a considerable distance, though Ipsos I&O added that the CDA is often underestimated in municipal council polls. In 2022, the Christian Democrats scored 4 percentage points higher than the last poll expected.

Strikingly, parties to the right of the VVD on the political spectrum - PVV, FvD, JA21, and BBB - can only count on approximately 7 percent of the votes in this poll, while nationally, they account for approximately 30 percent of the vote. “This is largely because these parties participate in relatively few municipalities.” The FvD is only participating in 31 percent of municipalities. The PVV (12%), BBB (9%), and JA21 (2%) participate in even fewer.

“Local parties benefit from this,” the researchers said. 55 percent of voters who said they’re voting for a local party this election, vote for one of the right-wing parties in national elections.

According to Ipsos I&O, people who vote for local parties are relatively often right-wing, are slightly more likely to be male, relatively often live in the southern provinces, and are considerably older than the average voter.

The low support for right-wing parties may also have to do with the issues voters consider important in this election. Safety and housing are the biggest issues for voters in this municipal election, with 39 percent putting these two topics in their top three. More people are now worried about safety than in 2022, when 34 percent mentioned this issue. Fewer people are worried about housing, down from 50 percent in 2022.

While immigration and asylum have been one of the biggest issues nationally for years, it seems to play a modest role for voters in the municipal elections. According to Ipsos I&O, only 12 percent of voters mentioned this issue, making it only the 8th most important issue.

Ipsos I&O expects the turnout for next week’s election to be low. In 2022, only 51 percent of eligible voters went to the polls - a record low. This year, the percentage of people who definitely intend to vote is 3 percentage points lower than in 2022. “Therefore, it is possible that turnout will again be around 50 percent or even slightly lower this time.”

26 percent of people who intend to vote have not yet decided who they will be voting for. “This relatively often concerns D66 voters: three in ten voters who would currently opt for D66 if national elections were held do not yet know how to vote.”