POLITICS is slowly resuming after Sweden’s summer break. And Fredrik Reinfeldt, the prime minister, is celebrating a seasonal gift. The news of Barack Obama’s stopover in Stockholm en route to the G20 summit in St Petersburg in early September has created a media frenzy. This will be Sweden’s first-ever bilateral visit by an American president, and it may offer Mr Reinfeldt welcome distraction.

With just a year to go until the next election, most polls show Mr Reinfeldt’s four-party centre-right coalition, which has been in power since 2006, trailing far behind the opposition. A July poll by Demoskop, a pollster, found only 37.1% backing the coalition, against 50.4% for the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Left Party combined. Two of Mr Reinfeldt’s coalition allies, the Centre Party and the Christian Democrats, may not even get over the 4% parliamentary threshold.

What has gone wrong? Compared with most of Europe, Sweden has done well. But unemployment is a running sore. It was a big reason for the Social Democrats’ defeat in 2006, when the rate stood at only 6% and Mr Reinfeldt promised to boost jobs by cutting income tax and welfare benefits. Today unemployment is above 8%, and youth unemployment is higher than in any other Nordic country. The Social Democrats’ leader, Stefan Lofven, sees this as his ticket to power, and is making employment his priority.

When Mr Reinfeldt was re-elected in 2010, the economy was booming. In that year GDP grew by 6.6% and Anders Borg, the finance minister, was toasted around Europe for his fiscal discipline. This time the economy will be less helpful. Lower demand and a strong krona have hit exports. After a narrow escape from recession in 2012, most analysts see growth of only 1-1.5% this year.

Mr Reinfeldt still has advantages. One is that the government can afford to spend more. The public finances are strong and the government’s debt is down to below 35% of GDP. Next month, when Mr Borg presents his budget for 2014, he is expected to propose more income-tax cuts.

A second plus concerns uncertainty about coalitions. Mr Reinfeldt’s four-party grouping, led by his Moderate Party, is tried and tested. But Mr Lofven has yet to to say which other parties the Social Democrats may invite into a coalition. The Greens are a safe bet, but any hint of teaming up with the Left Party scares some voters.

Two factors count against Mr Reinfeldt, however. One is immigration, an issue being pushed by the far-right Sweden Democrats, who took 5.7% of the vote in 2010. They were quick to blame May’s riots on lax immigration and asylum policies; some polls say they are now the country’s third-biggest party. Electoral law is changing, too. In future a prime minister must win a vote of confidence in parliament, whereas before he could stay on unless a majority called for his resignation. With neither main bloc expected to win a majority and the Sweden Democrats as the kingmaker nobody talks to, there may have to be horse-trading across the two blocs. “It could take time to form a government,” says Tommy Moller, a professor at Stockholm University.

Mr Reinfeldt and his team are a known quantity and mostly respected. But some voters may like a change after eight years. After Mr Obama leaves, it will be back to politics as usual—and it would be a mistake to count on a third Reinfeldt victory.