Denmark, which recently had friction with the United States over ownership of Greenland, will hold a snap general election next month. The decision moves up the legal deadline for the election by more than six months and is effectively a midterm gamble; it is the first time since 2004 that an incumbent prime minister has called an early general election.
According to Reuters and others on the 26th local time, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen appeared in the Copenhagen parliament that day and declared that a general election would be held on the 24th next month. Since the previous general election was in Nov. 2022, the vote could have been held by this November, but analysts said Frederiksen seized on her recent rebound in approval ratings to make a bold move.
In her parliamentary speech, Frederiksen said "we must redefine our relationship with the United States," and emphasized, "as Danes and as Europeans, the time has come for us to truly stand on our own." She also argued that "Denmark must continue to rearm," and added, "we must prepare for war in the east, threats in the west, and terror in the south," remarks that appeared to allude respectively to Russia, the United States, and the Middle East.
In this election, a total of 179 lawmakers will be newly elected, and among them, two each are expected to be from Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
Immediately after the snap election announcement, three politicians formalized bids for the prime minister's office, sending the race into a heated phase. Troels Lund Poulsen, Denmark's defense minister and leader of the second-largest party, the Liberal Party, said "we are being challenged by Putin in the east and Trump in the west," and put security front and center, saying "we must defend the Kingdom of Denmark."
However, some analysts said political calculation favorable to Frederiksen is behind the snap election. Frederiksen began her rule with a single-party government in 2019 and continued her term after agreeing to form a grand coalition in 2022, but she later struggled in polls and faced falling approval ratings.
In particular, in the local elections last November, the Social Democrats led by Frederiksen suffered a crushing defeat by ceding the Copenhagen mayor's office for the first time in about 100 years, and she came under pressure to resign over responsibility for the loss.
But this year, as U.S. President Donald Trump hinted at the possibility of annexing Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, Frederiksen's firm response helped her approval ratings rebound. Frederiksen called Greenland's sovereignty a nonnegotiable "red line" and urged North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) unity, and Trump stepped back, saying "we will resolve the issue through negotiations."
Experts predicted that the earlier the general election is held, the more favorable the landscape could become for Frederiksen. Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), said "if an election had to be held soon anyway, it is advantageous to do it while memories of standing up to Trump are still vivid."
Frederiksen did not specifically address whether she would resign if the Social Democrats lose their status as the largest party, but experts said that at this point an early general election is relatively favorable to the ruling party.
Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen, a professor at the Royal Danish defense college in Copenhagen, also said a classic "rally-around-the-flag effect" had emerged, explaining that "holding an election when the Greenland issue is in full swing risks appearing opportunistic, while waiting too long would have erased the strategic advantage."