Austria's main opposition party, the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO), lost some four percent of votes in Sunday’s election compared to 2017, according to preliminary results. The SPO’s Chairperson Pamela Rendi-Wagner reacted to the results in a speech in Vienna on Sunday, saying, "We ran on the right issues."

"We have a result, a temporary result, and it isn't what we hoped for," she said. "We ran on the right issues, because they are the answers to the problems facing the people that are and will be in Austria."

The SPO came in second with 22.6 percent according to the preliminary results, compared with 26.9 percent in 2017, while Chancellor Sebastian Kurz conservative OVP party soared to 37.1 from 31.5 percent in 2017.

Kurz's government collapsed in May, triggering snap elections when a recording was published of then-Vice Channcellor Heinz-Christian Strache in a conversation with an unidentified woman claiming to be the niece of a Russian oligarch, discussing taking control of the country's largest-circulation tabloid in order to help the FPO in future elections. The purported deal was allegedly made in exchange for public contracts.