But the alliance failed to take advantage of these opportuni­ties. Its support remained stable at around 15–16% through­out 2024 and early 2025, rising to 17% only shortly before the government’s collapse. Other left-wing parties also made only modest gains, with limited growth for D66, the PvdD and the SP. Voters who were fed up with the government in­stead increasingly turned to the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), which had recovered strongly under popular leader Henri Bontenbal and briefly overtook GL-PvdA in the polls. Election campaign and results The campaign, which kicked off in September 2025, was dominated by the immigration issue. The issue had also been instrumental in bringing down the government. The right-wing parties pushed it for all they were worth, exac­erbated by violent anti-immigration protests in The Hague and Amsterdam. Televised election debates likewise cen­tred on migration, as the far-right frequently framed socio-­economic issues such as housing in terms of immigration, emphasising the pressure that asylum seekers, immigrants and international students allegedly impose on the hous­ing market. Polls showed that CDA, D66 and JA21 gained ground during the campaign, while GL-PvdA, PVV and VVD lost it, but even as late as three days before election day, between 50% and 80% of voters were undecided. The 2025 elections proved to be among the most volatile in Dutch history, although voter shifts occurred mainly within three ideological blocs: a left-wing bloc(DENK, GL-PvdA, PvdD, SP, Volt), a right-wing bloc(BBB, CDA, NSC, SGP, VVD), and a far-right bloc(FvD, JA21, PVV). D66 occupies a distinctive position within this system, combining a ­centre-right socio-economic profile with a cosmopolitan-­progressive outlook, which in principle would enable it to attract voters from both sides. 2 GL-PvdA performed poorly, its share of the vote falling from 15.8% to 12.8% and losing five parliamentary seats. This marked the alliance’s second-worst result ever, only mar­ginally better than in 2021. Only 60% of its 2023 voters re­mained loyal. The largest share of defectors(22%) switched to D66, while 6% abstained. Smaller shares of voters were lost to the CDA(3%), the PvdD(2%), the VVD(1%) and the SP(1%). On the other hand, GL-PvdA did attract some new voters, with 5% of its 2025 voters coming from D66, 3% from the SP, 2% from NSC, and 2% from the PvdD, as well as a sizeable group of previous non-voters(6%), who probably ­included many first-time voters. With the exception of DENK, which remained stable at 2.4%, all the left-wing parties lost ground. This shrank the left-wing bloc to just 20% of the vote, its lowest level since the intro­duction of universal suffrage in 1919. It was also the smallest share in Western Europe, where on average left-wing parties have typically retained around one third of parliamentary seats: in the Netherlands they now hold only one fifth. 3 However, several scholars include D66 in their assessments of the size of the left-wing bloc, citing its progressive, cosmopol­itan agenda and appeal to left-wing voters. On this basis, the Seat share GroenLinks, PvdA, and GroenLinks-PvdA, 1994–2025 60 Figure 1 Percent 50 40 30 20 10 0 1995 2000 2005 GL PvdA GL-PvdA 2010 2015 2020 2025 The 2025 Dutch elections 2