Dutch centrist liberals led by Jetten are headed for a shock election victory, exit polls show.

Centrist progressives led by Rob Jetten are headed for a dramatic victory, according to major exit polls, two years after finishing fifth in the last poll.

Jetten has run a remarkable campaign in recent weeks, with Ipsos I&O exit polls showing his D66 progressives winning 27 seats, two more than Geert Wilders, the anti-Islam populist who won the last election.

Although the final result was too close to be determined, Wilders conceded victory and Jetten told supporters, “Millions of Dutch people have turned a page. They have said goodbye to negative politics.”

The three political parties following closely behind are the conservative Liberal Party, the left-wing Green Left Labor Party, and the Christian Democratic Party.

Wilders led the polls throughout the campaign, but after he quit his coalition in June over a row over asylum and migration, all mainstream leaders made it clear they never wanted to work with him again.

Meanwhile, Jetten’s party ran a very successful campaign. Just a few weeks ago, opinion polls showed D66 winning just 12 seats, but the photogenic 38-year-old leader has capitalized on his polished performance in a series of televised debates and interviews.

The fact that he took part in a TV quiz show called The Smartest Person in the weeks leading up to the vote was also added to his public profile.

Jetten was careful not to claim victory Wednesday night. Because the margin of error of exit polls meant that nothing was certain.

But Dilan Yesilgöz’s conservative-liberal VVD also had a successful night, finishing in third place and likely securing a place in the Jetten-led coalition going forward.

As the election began on Wednesday, voters knew the outcome would be on a knife’s edge as five parties were vying for victory. Wilders’ PVV Freedom Party won 37 seats in November 2023, but this time he was clearly shunned by voters who realized he could not form another coalition.

It took Wilders seven months to reach a deal with his coalition partners for 2024, and brought down the government 11 months later.

Rob Jetten has made it clear that he is looking for a broad coalition that is “stable and ambitious”, noting it is unprecedented for the winning party to win fewer than 30 seats in parliament.

He named Labor(PvdA)-GreenLeft, led by former European Commissioner Frans Timmermans, as one potential coalition partner, along with Yesilgöz’s conservative liberals and the Revitalized Christian Democracy (CDA).

The exit poll delivered bad news for Timmermans, whose left-wing party, which had long been second in opinion polls, is now set to take fourth place.

He promised supporters late Wednesday that “there will be better times ahead.” He added, “Of course I am very disappointed,” and said he would resign and take responsibility for the results.

Timmermans and Wilders, both in their early 60s, entered politics at the same time, and there is a sense that Dutch voters are now ready to try something new.

But Wilders said he wasn’t going anywhere. “You won’t get rid of me until I’m 80.” He was optimistic about the Liberal Party’s performance. “Of course we would have liked to see more seats… but we still got second-best results.”

Matthijs Rooduijn of the University of Amsterdam said Wilders’ party had lost the support of many moderate voters to other parties and more radical parties.

But he said the “loss could have been worse” because Wilders had broken his last coalition and campaigned less actively than his rivals.

There was palpable excitement as D66 supporters gathered at a music venue in Leiden, a university city between Amsterdam and The Hague, for the results. A second exit poll, half an hour after voting closed at 21:30 (20:30 GMT), confirmed early expectations and the words “Yes, we can” echoed repeatedly in the halls like a kind of party mantra.

The man expected to become the youngest prime minister in modern Dutch history took the stage and told supporters: “We did it. This is the best result D66 has ever achieved.”

“We also know that millions of Dutch people voted for different parties and I also feel a very heavy responsibility for them all,” Rob Jetten said. “We will do our best in the coming years to show all Dutch people that politics and government are there for them again, so they can think big again and act big again, moving the Netherlands forward.”

The election was partly about migration and overcrowded asylum centres, but the biggest issue for voters was the country’s chronic housing shortage of nearly 400,000 units for a population of 18 million.

Jetten’s party said it would build 10 cities as part of its crisis resolution plan.

“This has been a campaign of optimism. It shows that the Netherlands is tired of two years of stagnation. We recognize the big challenges and want to make progress on them,” said Eline, a D66 supporter. “This shows that the Dutch are yearning for a prime minister who can unify the country and address the major challenges facing our country and the world.”

One of the liberals’ potential coalition partners is the Christian Democrats. The Christian Democrats were ignored with only a handful of seats just two years ago. They are now expected to win 19 games.

“This is a truly fantastic result. Two years ago we would not have dared to dream of this,” CDA leader Henri Bontenbal told supporters chanting his name.