The election was a huge setback for the Socialist Party (PS), which lost almost 18 percentage points.

The People's Party (CDS-PP) also had a surprising result, winning 8 percent of the vote and electing two European Parliament members.

Both PSD and CDS-PP, who ran in a joint list in 2004, increased sharply their scores and together they won more than 40 percent of the vote and 10 European Parliament members.

On the left, both the Left Bloc (BE) and Democratic Unity Coalition (CDU) achieved very good results with the historic fact that BE surpassed CDU in term of votes and seats for the first time, although only just.

The lists were headed by[1] Exit polls from the three major television networks in Portugal, RTP1, SIC and TVI were given precisely at 20:00 pm (local time) on 7 June 2009.