Populist partner: the influence of partner characteristics on populist radical right voting

Abstract

In this study, the role of the partner’s self-assessed socio-economic status and political attitudes on populist radical right voting is studied. We made use of a survey among the adult Dutch population (the LISS panel), with information on the self-assessed occupational class, education and political preferences of both partners in cohabiting heterosexual couples. Our results show that, next to the more often found effect of one’s own socio-economic status, the lower the self-assessed occupational class and educational level of the partner, the more likely one is to vote for the PVV, a Dutch populist radical right party. Whereas previous literature has shown that partner’s socio-economic status affects voting behaviour through economic policy preferences, we show the partner’s self-assessed position, for both men and women, is also relevant in explaining behaviour via other political attitudes, such as anti-immigration views. Regardless of one’s own political attitudes, the attitudes of the partner affect one’s likelihood to vote for the populist radical right. With this study, we thus show that including partner characteristics provides further insight into the role of occupation, education, gender, and political attitudes in populist radical right voting, providing evidence of the importance of people’s strong ties in voting behaviour outcomes.