COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Wherever you walk in the Danish capital these days, you're met with smiling faces. Not so much from locals — they're still grumbling about one of the coldest winters in recent memory — but from campaign posters covering city walls, parks and lamp posts. The cheery headshots are of candidates running in Tuesday's parliamentary elections.
Perhaps the biggest smile this election season belongs to Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, whose center-left Social Democratic Party spiked in opinion polls after she stood up to President Trump earlier this year when he threatened to take Greenland.
With the war in Iran in its fourth week, it might be easy to forget Trump's threats to seize the Danish territory of Greenland. He later backed off the threats. But Danes haven't forgotten. Frederiksen called early elections as a way to capitalize on her popularity, analysts say.
"The whole situation around Greenland definitely helped her a little bit in the polls, so this seemed, I think for them, like the best time to do it," says Peter Thisted Dinesen, political science professor at the University of Copenhagen.
At a recent campaign event in this city, Social Democratic member of parliament Ida Auken says she believes that because of Trump's antagonism, Frederiksen has become one of the most popular leaders in Europe.
"One thing that is very clear to many Danes is that Mette Frederiksen has been very strong," says Auken. "She's been strong in the case around Greenland, but she's also been very smart, I think, in uniting Europe around these issues."
Frederiksen has also united Denmark with its most important territory, says fellow parliamentarian Aaja Chemnitz. "I think in many ways that Greenland and Denmark are standing much closer together than we have ever done before in history," says Chemnitz, who has chosen not to run for reelection this year.
Chemnitz represents Inuit Ataqatigiit, a democratic socialist party in Greenland. She, along with U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for their role in de-escalating tensions between the U.S. and Greenland.
"Just getting the nomination is an honor, but we wouldn't give it away. I'm pretty sure of that," she says with a grin, in reference to this year's prize-winner, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who handed over her prize to President Trump.
Chemnitz says her biggest hope is that Trump's threats don't distract voters. "I think it's important for us to keep the focus always in order to make sure that both Greenland and Denmark [are] doing their work in order to make sure that there's not so much to criticize," she says.
Chemnitz says she hopes Denmark focuses on improving health care and education in Greenland, and she notes that in the past year, Denmark's government increased spending in Greenland tenfold, a surprise perk from Trump's threats.
On the streets of Copenhagen, voters like Dani Mueller say Denmark's moment in the global spotlight may have prompted the election, but it's not the focus of voters like him. As a father of four, he'd like lower taxes. "Just more family friendly, you know? Keep it down for little people, not just the companies," he says.
Mueller, who is unemployed, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from serving in the U.S.-led war in Iraq 20 years ago. When asked if he regrets that service after Trump, in an interview, questioned the loyalty of NATO soldiers like him in U.S.-led wars, he simply says, "I'm proud of my service."
Back at Auken's campaign event at a local bar, the candidate says a fading trans-Atlantic alliance could mean a bright future for Europe. "A lot of good things are happening in the sense that Europe is getting its act together," says Auken. "We're starting to stand up straight, invest in our own things, not playing the little brother, but just getting to be the continent we should be."
The cozy bar is filled with Danes eager to express this spirit through song. Each of them holds a navy-blue hardcover book open to the same page. This is what Danes call the "high school song book," a 19th century volume they have from their school years that is filled with old songs reflecting the country's history and singing tradition.
The bar's patrons launch into Hymn 281, "The Blue Anemone," a poem set to music by Kaj Munk, a priest who wrote it in protest of the Nazi occupation of Denmark in World War II.
After writing it, Munk was arrested by the German Gestapo and murdered. Munk's song is about a flower "as blue as the sea," the first to bloom in spring, sprouting from the cold, dead earth of winter, a sign of hope and resistance for a land under siege.
Esme Nicholson contributed reporting from Berlin.
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