Norway’s left-wing bloc, led by incumbent Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, has won Monday’s national election by a narrow nine-seat margin with almost all the votes counted.
With 99 percent of votes counted in the 2025 Norwegian election the group of left-leaning parties have won by an expected 88 seat to 81, allowing Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre to remain in power.
Earlier in the evening the first projected results gave the five “red-green” parties — Støre’s Labour, the Centre Party, the Greens, the Socialist Left and the Red party — 87 seats compared to 82 seats to the opposing right-leaning parties. This was later updated to 88 and 81 respectively.
Conservative leader Erna Solberg and Progress Party leader Sylvi Listhaug have both called Støre to concede the election, sources told broadcaster TV2.
“I have a good feeling. We’ve had a good election campaign,” Støre told his supporters just before the first results came out.
In power since 2021, Støre is poised to continue as head of a minority government, which is common in Scandinavia.
His Labour Party was seen coming out on top with around 28 percent of voter support.
If the figures are confirmed, Labour will need need the backing of the other four left-wing parties, which are divided on a myriad of issues, to obtain a majority to pass legislation and its budget.
The three smaller parties in the red-green group, the Greens, the Socialist Left and the Red party, are all set to gain the crucial 4 percent share of the vote, which is the threshold needed to enter parliament. This is a key element in providing the left ‘bloc’ with an overall win.
On the right, the populist Progress Party led by Listhaug has gained 24 percent of the vote – a huge jump of 12 percent compared to its 2021 vote share, while the Conservatives, led by former PM Solberg, were forecast to fall back by 6 percent to just 14 percent of the overall vote.
Boosted by younger voters, in particular men, the Progress Party became the leading opposition force overtaking Solberg’s Conservative Party.
“Do we want to continue as before, spending more and maintaining very high taxes without getting more for our money than neighbouring countries, or do we want to take back control and stop the waste,” Progress Party leader Sylvi Listhaug told broadcaster TV2 on Monday.
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The centrist Liberal (Venstre) party, which backs Solberg for Prime Minister, has taken a 3.6 percent vote share, meaning it would not qualify for representation in parliament.
Labour’s vote share of 28 percent, 1.9 points more than in 2021, represented a solid return for the governing party.
The Centre Party has dropped 7.8 percentage points compared to its 2021 result, which was a historically strong performance for the agrarian, EU-skeptic party.
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The result was projected by the Norwegian Directorate of Elections at 9pm on Monday evening, just as polling stations closed across the country.
The election campaign in the wealthy nation of 5.6 million people centred largely on domestic issues like purchasing power, inequality, public services and taxes.
Several dozen wealthy Norwegians have fled to Switzerland in recent years to avoid wealth tax, and the two blocs have butted heads over whether to maintain or abolish the tax.
“What really has been a concern for people is their daily situation in their personal economy, how to cope with increasing prices,” Støre told reporters after casting his ballot with his wife at an Oslo school earlier in the day.
Norwegians cast their ballots at polling stations throughout the day, with a record number 1.9 million people having also voted in advance between August 11th and September 5th.
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The advance votes, which can be counted before polling stations close under Norwegian law, are used as the basis for the initial projection of the results.
The projection will be updated throughout the evening as vote counts from the day trickle in from each of the 19 Norwegian election districts.