Will Covid-19 kill off the populist radical right? By means of data from @pollofpolls_EU and #ThePopuList I examined how 31 PRR parties have fared in the polls in the last 6 months. Today I published a blog post in Dutch. Here are the main takeaways:
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1. In the first couple of months of the crisis, several PRR parties (most of them from north-western Europe) have indeed suffered (polled) electoral blows from the coronavirus crisis.
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2. This pattern is not Europe-wide, however: about half of the PRR parties did NOT lose votes according to the polls. (In fact, some of them even gained votes!)
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3. After the first months of the crisis, the (polled) losses stabilized, and several of the most severely hit PRR parties even recovered a little bit.
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4. Europe-wide support for the PRR declined from about 20.6% in March to 19.5% in June. Since June this percentage didn’t change much anymore.
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To sum up: about 1 in 5 Europeans vote for the PRR (!), this support for the PRR decreased a little bit in the first few months of the crisis, but stabilized afterwards.
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Given that we can (1) expect quite some economic setbacks in the near future, (2) because conspiracy theories flourish, and (3) there's increasing discontent with governments’ coronavirus policies, I don’t expect that Covid-19 will kill off the PRR anytime soon…
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Link to blog post (in Dutch): http://stukroodvlees.nl/corona-en-radicaal-rechts-populisme-einde-van-een-tijdperk/