Wilders Back Out in the Cold After Early Dutch Lead Evaporates
- Wilders party looks set to become largest opposition bloc
- Freedom Party fell short of Wilders’s own expectations
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Given the most promising set of circumstances for a populist campaign in a generation, Geert Wilders failed to deliver.
The anti-Islam Freedom Party leader led for much of the campaign but was unable to convert that early poll support into votes in Wednesday’s election in the Netherlands. Soundly beaten by Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals, by his own admission his party fell at least 10 seats short of its target.