Denmark Regional elections 2021 — Results

At a glance

The 2021 Danish regional elections, held on 16 November 2021 alongside the municipal elections, again returned the Social Democrats as the largest party across the five regional councils, but the night belonged in narrative terms to the Conservatives, who recorded their best local and regional results since 1985. In a symbolic blow to the left, the Social Democrats lost the chairmanship of the North Jutland region for the first time since the regions were created in 2007.

The rules of the game

The five regions each elect a 41-member council by proportional representation for four years. Their dominant responsibility is the public health service, and because the regions cannot levy taxes, the elections turn on hospitals, psychiatry, ambulances and regional transport rather than on the ideological battles of national politics.

The campaign and result

The campaign was framed by the health service's exhaustion after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, by long waiting lists and by staffing shortages, especially in nursing. Nationally the Social Democrats took about 28% of the regional vote, ahead of Venstre on roughly 23% and a surging Conservative Party on about 14%. The Social Democrats remained largest in four regions, but in North Jutland the liberal Venstre politician Mads Duedahl assembled a cross-bloc majority to take the chair — the first non-Social Democratic regional leader there since 2007.

Turnout and the map

Turnout was about 67%, slightly down on 2017. The map above shows the largest party in each regional council; the Social Democrats led the vote everywhere except where Venstre's rural strength was concentrated, with the full party breakdown available on click.

After the vote

The Conservative surge and Venstre's North Jutland breakthrough were early signs of the centre-right's revival at local level, even as the Social Democrats held national office. The result fed into the wider reassessment of the regions themselves, whose future and boundaries would be reopened in the years that followed, culminating in the 2025 merger of the Capital and Zealand regions.

The arithmetic of the night

Measured against 2017, the night's movement was all on the right. The Conservatives more than doubled their regional vote, from 6.88% to 14.14%, and their seats from 15 to 31, while the Danish People's Party crashed from 9.66% and 21 seats to 4.15% and 8 — a collapse mirrored at every level of Danish politics that year. The new right-wing Nye Borgerlige entered the regional councils with 5 seats on its debut. The Social Democrats slipped from 70 to 64 seats (30.44% to 28.04%) and Venstre defended its 54 exactly, while the Social Liberals edged up from 8 to 11 seats and the Green Left and Red–Green Alliance added one each. Beneath a stable-looking top two, the composition of Denmark's regional politics was being quietly rearranged.

Source

Official results from Statistics Denmark (Danmarks Statistik) — dst.dk/valg. The map shows the largest party in each of the five regional councils.

Compiled and reviewed from official results by ElectioMap. See our data methodology.