Norway County elections 2023 — Results

The essentials

The county council elections of 11 September 2023 followed the same rightward swing as the municipal vote held the same day. The Conservative Party (Høyre) finished first with 25.51% and 163 of the 664 county seats, ahead of the Labour Party (21.81%, 153) and the Progress Party (12.46%, 87). The Centre Party fell back to 8.63%. Turnout was 57.3%.

Electoral system

County councillors are elected for four years by party-list proportional representation (modified Sainte-Laguë) within each county. Oslo, as both a municipality and a county, again held no separate county election, and long-term foreign residents could vote alongside citizens.

The unwinding of the mergers

This election was held just as several of the county mergers imposed in 2020 were being reversed: from 1 January 2024 a number of counties were re-established as separate units. The 2023 vote therefore chose the councils of these soon-to-be-divided counties, a direct consequence of the Centre Party's long campaign — pursued in national government after 2021 — to undo the regional reform.

The rightward swing

As with the municipal contest, the result was a mid-term rebuke to Jonas Gahr Støre's red-green national government. The Conservatives' first place was driven by the cost-of-living crisis and exceptionally high electricity prices, while the Progress Party recovered and the once-surging Centre Party fell back, now tarnished by its time in office.

What the counties do

The county tier remains responsible for regional transport, county roads, upper-secondary schools and dental services. The repeated reorganisation of county boundaries — merged in 2020, then partly demerged from 2024 — has made the structure of this tier of government an unusually live political issue in Norway.

Turnout

Turnout was 57.3%, a few points below the municipal figure on the same day, in line with the consistent pattern of lower participation in county than in municipal elections.

Compared with 2019

Set against the previous county elections, the swing was stark. The Conservatives jumped from 19.48% and 107 seats in 2019 to 25.51% and 163 in 2023, displacing Labour — down from 24.89% to 21.81% — from a first place it had long taken for granted at this level. The sharpest single move was the Centre Party's: having surged to 16.63% in 2019 at the height of its anti-centralisation campaign, it fell to 8.63% — roughly half its previous share — once it had spent two years implementing policy in national government. The Progress Party recovered from 9.18% to 12.46%, while the Greens slipped back from their 2019 high. Turnout eased from 59.5% to 57.3%.

Why it matters

The 2023 county landslide for the right marked the low point of the Støre government's mid-term standing. Yet the demerging of counties from 2024, and Labour's national comeback in 2025, showed how quickly the political and administrative map in Norway can shift.

About the data

Norwegian Election Directorate (Valgdirektoratet) — valgresultat.no.

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