Sweden’s school election produced a clear shift to the left compared with 2022, even as Moderaterna strengthened its position as the most popular party among students.
More than 413,000 lower and upper secondary school students took part in the simulated national vote, with turnout reaching a record 81.9%.
Moderaterna won 32.7% of the vote, well ahead of Socialdemokraterna on 19.3% and Sverigedemokraterna on 13.8%. But the balance between the political blocs changed substantially: the advantage held by the Tidö parties over S, V, MP and C fell from around 25 percentage points in 2022 to about 6 points in 2026.
- Moderaterna (M): 32.7%, +5.5 percentage points from 2022
- Socialdemokraterna (S): 19.3%, +3.2
- Sverigedemokraterna (SD): 13.8%, −7.0
- Vänsterpartiet (V): 12.1%, +4.2
- Miljöpartiet (MP): 7.5%, +2.8
- Centerpartiet (C): 6.1%, −1.8
- Kristdemokraterna (KD): 3.0%, −6.3
- Liberalerna (L): 1.2%, −3.2
- Other parties: 4.3%, +3.8
What Sweden’s school election actually is
The Swedish skolval, or school election, is a simulated election for students held around national and European elections. It does not affect the composition of the Riksdag and has no legal consequences for the real election.
Instead, its purpose is educational. Students vote using procedures designed to resemble a real election, with ballot papers, voting booths, electoral rolls, ballot boxes and vote counting. The exercise is intended to help students understand how elections work and to encourage discussion about democracy, politics and public affairs.
School elections have been held in Sweden for more than 60 years. The Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society Affairs (Myndigheten för ungdoms- och civilsamhällesfrågor, MUCF) has been responsible for national parliamentary school elections since 2002.
The 2026 vote was held between 24 August and 8 September. A total of 1,461 schools in 90% of Sweden’s municipalities participated, making it the largest school election held so far.
The Moderates became even stronger among students
The clearest individual result was the continued strength of Moderaterna.
The party received 32.71%, up from 27.23% in the 2022 school election. That increase of roughly 5.5 percentage points gives M a much larger lead over every other party than it has in the actual parliamentary election.
Socialdemokraterna remained well behind but improved substantially, rising from 16.13% in 2022 to 19.31%.
Vänsterpartiet recorded an even stronger increase, from 7.86% to 12.06%, while Miljöpartiet rose from 4.69% to 7.48%.
Those gains explain why MUCF described the result as showing a marked shift towards the left, despite Moderaterna’s dominant position.
Sverigedemokraterna and KD lost heavily
The largest decline was recorded by Sverigedemokraterna.
SD fell from 20.8% in 2022 to 13.83% in 2026, a drop of almost seven percentage points. It consequently fell from second to third place among students.
Kristdemokraterna also suffered a major setback, falling from 9.29% to 3.01%, while Liberalerna declined from 4.4% to 1.17%.
Both would therefore fall below Sweden’s 4% parliamentary threshold if the school election were an actual Riksdag election.
Centerpartiet also declined, though less dramatically, from 7.85% to 6.09%.
The gap between the blocs narrowed dramatically
The most politically interesting change becomes visible when the results are grouped by bloc.
In the 2022 school election, Moderaterna, Sverigedemokraterna, Kristdemokraterna and Liberalerna together were around 25 percentage points ahead of Socialdemokraterna, Vänsterpartiet, Miljöpartiet and Centerpartiet.
In 2026, that difference fell to around 6 percentage points.
If only Moderaterna and Sverigedemokraterna are compared with S, V, MP and C, the difference becomes smaller still. According to MUCF director-general Magnus Jägerskog, M and SD together are now only around two percentage points ahead of those four parties combined.
The result therefore shows two trends at the same time: Moderaterna has become considerably stronger as an individual party, while the wider right-wing advantage among school students has weakened sharply.
More students voted than ever before
The 2026 school election also set participation records.
MUCF recorded 413,433 votes from 504,557 eligible participating students, producing turnout of 81.9%. In 2022, turnout had been 77.9%, with 390,120 students voting.
MUCF says school elections are one of Sweden’s largest democratic participation initiatives for young people. More than 2.3 million student votes were cast in school elections between 2002 and 2024.
Jägerskog said the high participation gives a broad indication of how politically engaged young people view the parties, although the results should not be treated as an opinion poll of all Swedish youth.
The school election does not predict the national result
The school election has no formal relationship with the actual parliamentary vote, and its participants are not identical to Sweden’s electorate.
Many students are below voting age, while others have only recently turned 18. Participating schools also decide whether to take part, meaning the exercise is not designed as a statistically representative national survey.
Its value lies elsewhere: it provides a large-scale snapshot of political preferences among students and, above all, gives hundreds of thousands of young people practical experience of voting.
The 2026 results therefore do not mean Sweden’s younger electorate has simply moved to the left. They show something more specific: the strong right-wing advantage seen in the 2022 school election has largely disappeared, while Moderaterna has simultaneously strengthened its position as the single most popular party among students.
