Exit poll suggests Dutch election result too close to call, with center-left party slightly ahead

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — An exit poll published immediately after voting ended Wednesday in the Netherlands’ general election suggested the result was too close to call, with the center-left D66 narrowly ahead of the far-right party of anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders and tough coalition talks likely to follow.

The poll showed that D66 would win 27 seats, a rise of 18 compared to the 2023 election. Wilders’ Party for Freedom would lose 12 seats to finish at 25 seats, according to the poll published by national broadcaster NOS. Final official results are likely to take hours.

If confirmed, the result would be a momentous win for D66 and could lead to a shift in government back toward the center for the Netherlands after a far-right government led by Wilders’ party after the last election.

“Millions of Dutch people today chose positive forces and a politics where we can look forward together again,” D66 leader Rob Jetten told cheering supporters on election night.

“In the coming years, we will do everything we can to show all these Dutch people that politics and the government can be there for them again. That we can think big and act big again so that the Netherlands can move forward,” he added.

If D66 has indeed won the most seats, the party will be in the driving seat to lead negotiations to form a new coalition and Jetten, a former climate minister in a previous coalition, could become the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister.

Wilders remained defiant, saying his party could still be the largest when official results are tallied. But he conceded his party had a disappointing election.

“Today is a day of results, and we lost and Mr. Jetten won, so he deserves congratulations too,” Wilders told reporters in parliament.

Mainstream parties including D66 have ruled that out joining Wilders' party in a coalition, arguing that his decision to torpedo the outgoing four-party coalition in June in a dispute over migration underscored that he is an untrustworthy partner.

Cobbling together a coalition that can command a majority in the 150-seat House of Representatives will be difficult in a parliament divided between left and right. While Wilders' party lost seats, another hard right party, Ja21, grew from one seat to nine.

Jetten said political leaders now need to seek common ground “to form a stable and ambitious Cabinet.”

Pollster IPSOS says that the exit poll was conducted at 65 polling stations and around 80,000 voters, using a method that in past Dutch elections has produced estimates very close to the final results.

Wilders’ Party for Freedom easily won the last election in 2023, but has lost support since forming and then bringing down a four-party coalition that was notorious for in-fighting and which did not manage to agree on a tough package of measures to rein in migration to the Netherlands.

Unlike all the other parties, Wilders did not organize an election night party.

The right-wing People's Party for Freedom and Democracy was third in the exit poll on 23 seats, one seat less than it won in 2023. The center-left combination of Green Left and the Labor Party lost five seats to end on 20 and leader Frans Timmermans, a former vice president of the European Commission, immediately quit.

“It is time for me to take a step back and give the leadership ... to the next generation,” Timmermans said.

The Christian Democrats were big winners, gaining 14 seats to end on 19, according to the poll.

“What a fantastic result. We wouldn’t have dared to dream of this two years ago,” said party leader Henri Bontenbal.

New Social Contract, a centrist party that was part of the outgoing coalition led by Wilders party slumped to a huge defeat, losing all 20 seats it held in Parliament, according to the exit poll.

The campaign echoed issues that resonate across Europe, focusing on how to rein in migration and tackle chronic shortages of affordable housing.

Migration has divided the Netherlands

The vote came against a backdrop of deep polarization in this nation of 18 million, at a recent anti-immigration rally in The Hague — when rioters smashed the windows of the D66 headquarters — and protests against new asylum-seeker centers.

Olga van der Brandt, 32, said she thought voters would turn their backs on parties that made up the last right-wing government led by Wilders. Her hope was that “this time there will be a more progressive party who can take the lead.”

In-fighting between parties in the last coalition led to criticism that the Netherlands, long a prominent voice within the European Union, was sometimes seen as not fully engaging with the continent as it had done under longtime leader Mark Rutte, who is now NATO's secretary-general.

The chief economist at the Center for European Reform think tank, Sander Tordoir, said that “Europe cannot afford another Dutch government that drifts and is absent in the European debate.”

That is likely to change if the next government is led by the pro-Europe D66.

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Associated Press writer Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report. Kriti Swarup contributed from Amsterdam.