Venstre’s lead candidate Morten Løkkegaard has become the first to receive over 100,000 personal votes in the current EU election. According to the latest count from the IT company KMD, which handles the official election results, Løkkegaard reached this milestone around 14.40. This puts him about halfway to his previous result from the EU election in 2019, where he secured 207,558 votes.
Løkkegaard’s closest competitors in the race for personal votes are SF’s lead candidate, Kira Marie Peter-Hansen, and the Social Democrats’ figurehead, Christel Schaldemose. Both candidates have also passed 100,000 personal votes, which happened around 15.00. In the previous election in 2019, Schaldemose received 65,179 votes, while Peter-Hansen received 15,765 votes. Peter-Hansen secured a seat in parliament as a substitute after Karsten Hønge from SF chose to pass on his mandate. Hønge was running for two positions, as he was also a candidate in the general election on June 5, 2019, where he secured a mandate.
The voter turnout in this election stands at 58.2 percent, slightly lower than the 60.1 percent recorded in 2019. Løkkegaard, who is 59 years old, was the Danish candidate with the most personal votes in the 2019 election. He has previously been a member of the EU Parliament from 2009 to 2014, but did not get re-elected at that time. In the 2014 election, Venstre’s seats went to Ulla Tørnæs and Jens Rohde. When Tørnæs was called back to become a minister by then Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen in 2016, Løkkegaard became her successor in parliament as the first alternate.