[2] The Alliance dominated the Stockholm capital region of the municipality and county and made further gains in South Sweden including narrowly flipping Malmö blue as well as winning pluralities in traditionally red towns such as Kalmar, Landskrona and Trelleborg.

The new parliament held its opening session on 5 October, with Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt presenting the annual government policy statement, along with changes to his cabinet.

[6] The SD leader Jimmie Åkesson wrote, in an opinion piece for the social-democratic tabloid Aftonbladet that the growth of the country's Muslim population "is the greatest foreign threat to Sweden since the Second World War.

The Sweden Democrats were expected to enter the Parliament for the first time, as the party's polling results had exceeded the 4% entry threshold since June 2009.

[9] Both the Alliance and the Red-Greens pledged not to seek support from the SD,[7] with Reinfeldt ruling out forming a government in cooperation with the Sweden Democrats.

[5] A privately owned television network, TV4, refused to air a SD campaign video, which was then uploaded to YouTube and viewed more than one million times.

[11][12] Pia Kjærsgaard, leader of the Danish People's Party, claimed that the election reminded her of "Eastern Europe", and that Sweden was the "banana republic" of the Nordic countries.

[9] Similarly, Hanne Kjöller of Dagens Nyheter hypothesised that the attacks strengthened the Sweden Democrats rather than hurting the party's support base.

[21] However, this fell short of the 175 seats needed for an absolute majority, and it appeared the Sweden Democrats would hold the balance of power in the new parliament.

[29] Liberal evening tabloid Expressen wrote in an editorial "The banner of tolerance has been hauled down and the forces of darkness have finally also taken the Swedish democracy as hostage.

Liberal conservative morning newspaper Svenska Dagbladet said "[It is] time for the Swedes to get themselves a new national self-image [as the election] created a new picture of Sweden".

The Dagens Nyheter postulated that electoral failure was based on internal factors, such that the Social Democrats failed to win over the middle class and had completely lost touch with their original vision, which had made them a dominant political party.

[31] An article in Al Jazeera English asked if Western political dynamics were changing following the Swedish and United States elections.

It asked if the similar results "reflect rather an underlying continuity in the generation-long evolution of Euro-American politics towards a fully neoliberalised system" and that Sweden seemed to be "moving towards an outdated model."

[32] The case of Annika Holmqvist, a seriously ill 55-year-old woman who had her sickness benefits withdrawn and was requested to seek work, allegedly due to the Alliance's reforms of Sweden's social security system, gave the opposition a late boost in its campaign.