Realigning the Left? Vote Switching among Social Democrats

• In Event: The Logic of Vote Switching in Competitive Democracies

Abstract

Across Europe, we have seen social democratic parties lose votes. In some cases, their vote shares represent historic lows in the post war period. What explains these dramatic losses? To understand this macro-level phenomenon, we look at individual behavior. In particular, we work to understand what explains when social democratic voters switch their vote to another party. To test our argument, we focus on understanding the decline in support of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) by understanding when voters switch to another party. More specifically, we examine when voters are likely to switch to another party on the left or on the right or far-right. Using data from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) panel and the Manifestos Project from 2005-2017, we argue that voters are likely to switch when parties are not responsive on key issues, either because the ideological distance between voters and their preferred party increases or because new, cross-cutting issues alter the political space. These findings have important implications for understanding whether this vote switching will contribute to a long-term realignment or if it is a more temporary shifting of voters.

Authors

• Jeffrey Nonnemacher, University of Pittsburgh

• Nils Ringe, University of Wisconsin, Madison

• Jae-Jae Spoon, University of Pittsburgh