Denmark’s kingmaker is a man who brushes his teeth with soap

The composition of the next Danish government may hinge on a former prime minister with a penchant for brushing his teeth with hand soap.

The Social Democrats of incumbent center-left Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen are projected to get the most votes when Danes go to the polls on March 24. But whether they can form a government will likely be decided by Lars Løkke Rasmussen, leader of the centrist Moderate Party.

Rasmussen, a former prime minister currently serving as the country’s foreign minister, was the face of Copenhagen’s defiance of threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to annex Greenland earlier this year. At the time, he and Frederiksen seemed like a dynamic duo protecting the Kingdom.

But just a day before Tuesday’s elections in Denmark, a right-leaning and a left-leaning bloc are nearly tied with each other in the polls, both just short of a majority in the country’s 179-seat parliament. Rasmussen’s Moderates, meanwhile, are projected to secure 12 seats.

That sets him up to either backstop Frederiksen to form another broadly centrist government, or hand power to Deputy PM Troels Lund Poulsen, leader of the center-right Venstre party and the preferred PM candidate of the right-wing bloc.

Frederiksen is using that reality to nudge voters towards supporting her. “If [Rasmussen] chooses to back another prime minister, then we will, with a very high possibility, get a right-wing government in Denmark,” she said recently.

Mette doesn’t define me

For the past four years, Frederiksen’s Social Democrats have governed in coalition with Venstre and Rasmussen’s Moderates — the latter named after a fictional political group in the hit Danish political drama, “Borgen.”

The government’s right-leaning policies on migration, which are among the most hardline in Europe, and the lack of action on issues like the housing crisis were cited as key factors in the Social Democrats’ disastrous results in December’s nationwide municipal elections.

In the wake of those votes, members of the party’s base called for Frederiksen to recalibrate and prioritize working with left-leaning parties. But the prime minister has kept her options open ahead of March 24, saying she can imagine a repeat partnership with “the political middle” as easily as an alliance with the left.

The latter option is firmly opposed by Rasmussen, who wants a repeat of centrist governance. The politician led Venstre during two non-consecutive terms as prime minister from 2009 to 2019, but following an election defeat broke away to found the Moderates as an alternative to Denmark’s historic left-right political offer.

Ahead of this week’s vote Rasmussen has ruled out facilitating a left-leaning coalition, saying he won’t partner with the far-left Red-Green Alliance whose support would be needed to make such a government viable.

He also insists he’s not aiming to usher the right into power, as Frederiksen claims.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen speaks to journalists ahead of a European Council summit in Brussels, Belgium on March 19, 2026. | Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images

“I will not be placed: I stand in the center, firmly, even when the winds blow,” he wrote on Facebook March 19. “The job is to pull together what is otherwise falling apart — because we already have plenty of forces pulling us in different directions.”

The GOAT

Rasmussen has been an omnipresent figure in Danish politics for 40 years.

In 1986, at 22, he became chairman of Venstre’s youth wing, kickstarting his political career. Since then he’s held multiple cabinet portfolios including finance, health, interior, foreign affairs and prime minister.

In recent years he has leaned into his status as a meme on social media, where he is celebrated for his playful demeanor and unabashed chain-smoking. His insouciance and pragmatism — which extends to using hand soap to brush his teeth when toothpaste is unavailable — strikes a chord with Danes, especially amid a tense election.

At the same time Poulsen and Frederiksen were dueling it out in a televised debate, Rasmussen uploaded a photo of himself with a goat on Instagram; the caption wished luck to the leaders of Denmark’s two biggest parties. The post referenced the term “greatest of all time” (GOAT) at a moment when his electoral opponents had the spotlight.

In the comment section under the entry, users posted goat emojis and echoed the GOAT label.

A shock endgame

Even though Frederiksen’s Social Democrats are projected to win the most votes, Rasmussen asks why they should get to decide who takes the post of prime minister, per parliamentary tradition.

“It’s a bit strange that the Social Democrats have never experienced sitting in government without having the post of prime minister,” he said recently. “I think they should experience that one day.”

Despite having already held the crown twice himself, the leader of the Moderates isn’t opposed to becoming prime minister again. Some Danish political analysts say the scenario isn’t impossible.

“If the election result is as messy as current polls suggest, and if neither the traditional blue nor red bloc has a majority without the Moderates, could a scenario emerge in which [Rasmussen] would and could go for the prime minister’s job himself?” public channel DR’s political correspondent Christine Cordsen posited. “There is no doubt that if the opportunity arises, he will go for it.”

It wouldn’t be without precedent. In 1968 Hilmar Baunsgaard became Danish prime minister despite leading the smallest party in the governing coalition.

Although Rasmussen admits he can’t imagine a government “where that would happen,” he also hasn’t rejected the idea of serving a third term as PM.

“Rule it out entirely? That would be a strangely weak position to put yourself in when you’re the GOAT, right?”