D66 comes out tops in student town elections

D66 and VVD had cause for celebration this week, and this was also borne out by the electoral results in the 16 larger cities with research universities and universities of applied sciences. The most impressive election victories were booked by the two liberal parties.

With nine ‘conquered’ cities and towns, Sigrid Kaag and her party have a slight edge over their more conservative colleagues. D66 chalked up the highest percentages in among other towns Utrecht (25.8 per cent), Nijmegen (23.2 per cent), Groningen (22.9 per cent) and Amsterdam (half-time score: 22.8 per cent). In Rotterdam, D66 also pipped VVD to the post with 16.7 per cent.

In turn, Mark Rutte and his VDD achieved high marks in the student towns of Noord-Brabant. The liberals emerged victorious in, among other towns, Breda (26.5 per cent), Den Bosch (23.7 per cent), Tilburg (21.5 per cent) and Eindhoven (19.7 per cent).

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GroenLinks has less reason to be satisfied. During the Provincial Council elections in 2019, this party was still the big winner in many student towns. Back then the Greens were able to land around a quarter of the votes in Utrecht, Wageningen, Amsterdam and Nijmegen. The picture was very different this time round: GroenLinks only did well in Wageningen, as the runner-up.

One of the biggest surprises of this year’s election was newcomer Volt. In Delft, the pan-European party placed fifth, scoring 7.5 per cent of the votes, and in Utrecht (6.7 per cent) and Wageningen (8 per cent) the Europhiles even came in fourth.

Young voters

A considerably higher share of ballots came from young voters this year than during preceding parliamentary elections. This becomes clear from research performed by Ipsos on behalf of broadcaster NOS. Some 80 per cent of voters in the 18-24 age group visited the polling station this week. A substantial increase over 2017’s turnout, when only two-thirds of the younger generation cast their vote.

The parties with the highest percentage of young adults (aged 18 to 34 years) in their support base are Denk, Volt and GroenLinks. At the other end of the spectrum we find CDA, PvdA, SP and 50Plus.