POLICY PAPER Sarah de Lange The 2025 Dutch elections: why the D66 trumped the GL–PvdA alliance On 29 October 2025, Dutch citizens voted in elections ­to the House of Representatives(Tweede Kamer) for the third time in four years. ­Although the GreenLeft–Labour Party(GroenLinks-PvdA or GL-PvdA) alliance had ranked second in the polls when elections were called in June, it finished fourth on election day itself. 1 Its vote share de­clined from 15.8% in 2023 to 12.8% in 2025, heading to­wards the parties’ lowest ever combined result of only 10% in 2021. The alliance also lost its position as leader of the cosmopolitan, progressive bloc to D66, which won the election with 16.9% of the vote. In the wake of such a dis­appointing result, party leader Frans Timmermans resigned on election night. This report analyses why the GL-PvdA al­liance – and the Left more broadly – underperformed in 2025. It argues among other things that strategic voting, weak leadership appeal and ineffective campaign messag­ing contributed to the defeat. Off to a good start? GL-PvdA performed well in the 2023 elections, but the most consequential outcome was the victory of Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom(PVV), which became the larg­est party with 23.5% of the vote. Together with the People‘s Party for Freedom and Democracy(VVD), New Social Con­tract(NSC) and the Farmer Citizen Movement(BBB), it formed a majority government after protracted negotiations dragged out for 223 days. The cabinet, led by non-partisan Prime Minister Dick Schoof and excluding party leaders, was plagued by internal conflict and repeated concerns about its respect for the rule of law. The government col­lapsed on 3 June 2025, after only 337 days in office, when the PVV withdrew its support, claiming that its coalition partners were unwilling to endorse additional measures to curb the influx of asylum seekers, including a proposal to close the borders to all applicants. New elections were called for October because of organisational constraints. Under the Schoof I cabinet, GL-PvdA was the largest oppo­sition party, having won 15.8% of the vote in 2023. It was considerably larger than other left-wing or progressive op­position parties, such as D66(6.6%), the Socialist Party (SP, 3.2%), DENK(2.4%), the Party for the Animals(PvdD, 2.3%), and Volt(1.7%). This presented the alliance with a clear opportunity to position itself as the main alternative to a conservative-nativist government coalition. In addition, socio-economic issues such as health-care affordability and housing shortages remained highly salient, seemingly pro­viding favourable conditions for a strong campaign in 2025. The 2025 Dutch elections 1