Dutch Coalition Polls Crash One Year After Jetten Win

Dutch coalition polls just delivered a brutal anniversary present to Prime Minister Rob Jetten. Exactly one year after his party D66 tied for first place in the Netherlands, the three parties running the country would now hold only about forty-five of the one hundred fifty seats in parliament, according to NLnow.

That is less than a third of the lower house, the Tweede Kamer. Back in the October 2025 election, D66, the VVD and the CDA won sixty-six seats between them. The latest Peilingwijzer, a weighted average of polls from Ipsos I&O and Verian/EenVandaag, shows that cushion has basically melted.

Where each party stands

D66 sits at thirteen to seventeen seats, eleven fewer than it holds now. The VVD is at fourteen to eighteen, a drop of six, and the CDA lands at twelve to sixteen, four fewer than today. Put together, the minority cabinet looks nothing like the force that took office this year.

The biggest winner is PRO, the party led by Jesse Klaver that formed from the GroenLinks-PvdA alliance. It polls between twenty-five and thirty-one seats, making it by far the largest party. Dutch broadcaster NOS reports that PRO is collecting progressive voters unhappy with the right-leaning policy D66 signed up for.

The right is not cashing in either

Here is the twist. Geert Wilders and his PVV, which also won twenty-six seats last year, are not benefiting from the VVD slide. The PVV polls at eighteen to twenty-three seats, below its election result. Voters leaving the VVD and the PVV are instead heading to JA21, now at fifteen to nineteen, and Forum voor Democratie at ten to fourteen.

The farm-protest party BBB has nearly vanished from the picture, polling between zero and two seats after winning four. Smaller parties such as 50Plus, the Party for the Animals and the SP each sit around four to six seats.

A leadership problem at the VVD

The numbers get personal for VVD leader Dilan Yesilgoz. According to Verian/EenVandaag, only twenty-eight percent of VVD voters want her to lead the party again at the next election. Ipsos I&O found the same pattern, and she earns the lowest rating of the main party leaders, a three point seven.

Just eight percent of VVD voters say they back the party because of its leader. Yesilgoz has recently insisted she will stay on as lead candidate regardless, but the polling suggests that pitch is a hard sell with her own base.

D66 faces a different kind of problem. Per NOS, trust in Jetten remains fairly high among his supporters, yet voters are drifting away from the party itself. One poll cited by Dutch media found that eighty-five percent of former D66 voters still think he does well as party leader, which hints that people like the face more than the government.

Why it matters for the budget

The timing is awkward. The cabinet is negotiating with seven opposition parties to pass its budgets and the tax plan, with a Tweede Kamer vote set for November twelfth. NLnow reports that the plan still lacks a majority in either house, and the opposition parties JA21, BBB and SGP are demanding a tax cut in return for their votes.

Political scientist Tom Louwerse, who runs the Peilingwijzer, offers an important caveat. Seat polls outside election season have little predictive value for the next result, he says. Still, he argues that parties react to them anyway, which raises pressure to win concrete wins in talks and makes compromise harder.

Ipsos I&O adds another wrinkle: roughly three quarters of opposition voters want their party to stick to its principles even if the government cannot finish its budget. That is a recipe for a tense few weeks in The Hague.

What to watch next

The cabinet meets opposition parties again on Friday. If a deal does not appear, the Netherlands could face messy tax bills at the start of the year, a risk Dutch outlets are already flagging. For a government that arrived promising a fresh start, one year in has become a stress test.

For young voters, the story is a reminder that big election wins can fade fast. For more on global politics, check the World and Politics sections on GenZ NewZ.