Where Are the Battlegrounds in the Dutch Election?
Some of the cities and regions to watch as the results are counted Wednesday night
CentERdata Sees Liberals Slightly Ahead in Dutch Polls
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In the last election in 2012, Prime Minister Mark Rutte's Liberals emerged as the largest party while Labor, his eventual coalition partner, swept the big cities. This year's election is looking much more open.
The Freedom Party puts up its strongest showing in Limburg in the relatively hilly southeast, an area where the Christian Democrats used to win big. Geert Wilders's party topped 20 percent of the vote in Venlo, his birthplace, in 2012, and came close in other big towns. But it did less well -- under 15 percent -- in the biggest city, Maastricht, a place synonymous with the ideal of European unity Wilders rails against.