The 48-year-old then goes on to grant selfies at an exhausting rate, at least four a minute, warmly hugging each and every person, her eyes sparkling, until finally she’s ushered into a black BMW and driven away for a brief rest.
The woman once attacked as a distant, unemotional ice queen, or ribbed as “Gucci Helle” for her penchant for designer clothing, is connecting with voters in a way she never managed during her last campaign in 2011. With less than 48 hours until Thursday’s election, the polls are tight, with the opposition slightly ahead and many commentators believing the result may be determined by voting in just four districts of Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
Three months after winning in 2011, her Social Democrat party’s support had plummeted to just 19 per cent, its lowest level ever. By April 2013, only 16 per cent of Danes still wanted her as prime minister, while 42 per cent favoured her right-of-centre Liberal Party opponent, Lars Lokke Rasmussen.
But an expenses scandal which broke out in 2013 has diminished Mr Rasmussen’s standing, while 41 per cent now say Ms Thorning-Schmidt is their preferred candidate. And at Folkemodet, Denmark’s annual political festival where all parties decamped to the Baltic island of Bornholm at the weekend, Ms Thorning-Schmidt seemed to have the momentum.
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