Thread by @bencoates1

I’m not really an expert poll-watcher, but six (fairly obvious) things I’ll be looking out for in the Dutch election results:
#Verkiezingen2021

1. Most obviously, the seats won by Rutte’s VVD, which forecasts show fluctuating a lot. Its hard to imagine they won’t come top - but expectations are so high that disappointment feels to me somewhat inevitable. (Work on your expectation management, guys...)

Will Rutte do well enough to guarantee another solid 4 years - or fall a bit short, keep his job but spend months in difficult coalition negotiations, and maybe get edged out of office in a year or two ?

2. The performance of Rutte’s coalition allies D66. Sigrid Kaag’s claims on the premiership have always been flimsy, but she’s had a good campaign, and a surprise looks plausible.

D66 could well overtake CDA for 3rd place, and maybe even beat Wilders to 2nd. A coalition with Kaag rather than Wopke Hoekstra in the co-pilot’s seat next to Rutte might be the closest we get to meaningful change.

3. Conversely, the CDA have underwhelmed under Hoekstra, who seems more impressive on paper than in campaign. Will they pull a last-minute satisfaction from the bag- or disappoint, lose out on key ministries, have another fast leadership campaign, become feistier under Omtzigt?

4. The PvdA (Labour Party) have struggled in the last few years; tainted by previous coalition with Rutte, benefits scandal and hit by decline of left wing social democracy in general. Can they turn things around with a solid performance, or has the rot set in?

5. The vote share of Thierry Baudet’s far-right FvD. Yes, he gets more attention than he deserves. But it’s also a fascinating political experiment: can going full Soros-Gates-5G conspiracy nutjob during a campaign actually win you a lot of votes?

6. Volt: brilliant newcomers building a dynamic movement to upend our politics, or underqualified millennials who are about to get embarrassed when they try to play with the big boys? We’ll see!

I’m awful at predictions so you shouldn’t really listen to anything I say, but FWIW my guess is something like:

VVD - 34 seats
PVV - 20
CDA - 17
D66 - 19
GL - 8 or 9

And if you missed it, you can read a bit more context here!
ben-coates.com/2021/03/13/the…