Sweden: far right Sweden Democrats to become largest political party in 2022?

Could the Sweden Democrats become the largest party in Sweden come the next election - 2022? As a note, all the other parties would probably prefer not to align themselves with the Sweden Democrats (at least not at this point in time).

Reuters mention that the Sweden Democrats polled at 24.2%. This would make them the largest party. The Social Democrats, which has long been the largest party in Sweden, polled at 22.2%. In the 2018 vote, the Sweden Democrats came in at 17.5% while the Social Democrats got 28.3% of the vote. The poll was put out by a polling company called Demoskop.

I was able to track down a Sifo poll result that came out at the same time. The polling results are slightly different with the Social Democrats at 24.4% and the Sweden Democrats at 23.0%. I'm breaking this down in the alliances that I learned about when blogging about the 2018 results with some notes as the two alliances hit some snags. Currently, the Social Democrats lead a minority government.



Centre-left bloc parties

Social Democrats: 24.4%

Left Party: 9.7% (abstained from voting for the Social Democrats)

Green Party: 4.7%

Alliance parties

Moderates: 17.0%
Center Party: 8.3% (abstained from voting for the Social Democrats)
Christian Democrats: 7.9%
Liberals: 3.6%  (abstained from voting for the Social Democrats)

Sweden Democrats: 23.0%

What is interesting about this specific Sifo poll is that they breakdown the theoretical distribution of seats. Due to a 4% threshold, the Liberals would be without seats. Here's the breakdown of seats along with some notes about their current seats:

Centre-left bloc parties

Social Democrats: 88 (currently at 100 seats)

Left Party: 38 (28)

Green Party: 18 (16)

Alliance parties

Moderates: 62 (70)
Center Party: 29 (31)
Christian Democrats: 29 (22)
Liberals: 0 (20)

Sweden Democrats: 85 (62)

If the 2022 elections were to follow the polling results, the Centre-left bloc would actually hold steady at 144 seats. The Alliance parties would drop from 143 seats to 120 seats. Sweden Democrats would increase from 62 seats to 85 seats. It would appear that the Sweden Democrats are taking votes away from the Alliance parties, hurting the Liberals the most as they wouldn't get any seats.

If votes for a government were done in the same fashion as 2018 (I guess really in 2019), those voting for were the Social Democrats and Greens, which would result in 106 votes. The Left Party, Center Party and Liberals voted to abstain. This would result in a vote total of 67. Those voting against were the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Sweden Democrats. This would result in a vote total of 176.

The way Swedes form a government is that a majority government needs 175 votes. A minority government can form if less than 175 votes against. In the 2018 elections, the Swedes were able to form a minority government of only 115 due to 3 parties deciding to abstain from voting. Well, if polling holds, the 2022 elections would not result in a minority government if the parties voted the same way that did previously as the total vote against would stand at 176.

It currently appears like the Swedes are on the borderline of not being able to form a majority or minority government in 2022 based on how the parties dealt with the 2018 voting. I suppose it comes down to how strongly does the Center Party and Left Party despise the Sweden Democrats. Or can the Sweden Democrats soften their image of being a former neo-Nazi party.