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Opinion polls have many questioning not just whether they will overtake the conservative Moderate Party to become the second largest party ahead of September’s elections, but whether they go one better in the long-term.

Support for the Swedish Democrats has reached a record high, with the anti-immigration party scoring 20 percent in the Ipsos opinion poll in May - just four points behind the Social Democrats and two points behind the centre-right Moderates.

The Social Democrats, who won back power at the head of a leftist alliance in 2014, still top the polls with 24 percent, but this has fallen sharply from 32 percent four years earlier.

It is the lowest score for Prime Minister Stefan Lofven’s Social Democrats in May of an election year since the polls began running in 1979.

This points to the Swedish Democrats being on course for their strongest ever result ahead of the vote on September 9, after scoring 14 percent in 2014 having entered Sweden’s Riksdag parliament four years earlier.