Reaching new voters without alienating the hard core is proving difficult for all parties

The time of the big parties is over. Of course a party can become big in elections, very big even. But the supporters are leaving as quickly as they came. The VVD, for a long time the last broad popular party in the Netherlands, also has to fight for its voters. Most parties now have a small, permanent following, and a large group of potential voters around it, a kind of shell. You will never win elections with only your own supporters, so the parties in this election campaign must be able to win over that core.

The problem that every party struggles with is: how do you reach those new voters without alienating your regular voters, your ‘core electorate’? Almost every party is facing this problem this campaign, say political scientists Matthijs Rooduijn (University of Amsterdam) and Simon Otjes (Leiden University). They have access to a huge wealth of voter data,

Take the CDA. The party now has five seats and, according to polls, is making significant gains. The regular CDA voter is relatively old, church-going, and conservative. Those supporters probably loved what party leader Henri Bontenbal added last week News hour said about homosexual students at reformed schools. Bontenbal defended the right of special schools to implement their own policy. According to voter research, potential CDA voters seem very shocked by Bontenbal’s statement.

That’s not surprising, say Rooduijn and Otjes. And if the CDA had looked at who their new voters are, they would have known that Bontenbal made a slip here. Because these new voters do believe in decency, just like Bontenbal, but are a lot less religious and find tradition and family values ​​much less important. Bontenbal’s explanation of Christian Democratic thinking about the freedom of education did not appeal to those voters in particular.

Matthijs Rooduijn: “Bontenbal seemed to quickly realize that his statement would not go down well with the flexible group of voters who are considering CDA. He reversed that statement a day later. The only question is whether the damage can be repaired.”

This gap between hard core and potential voters is not only a problem for the CDA, he says. “All parties, except perhaps the SGP and Denk, suffer from exactly this dilemma.”

Matthijs Rooduijn and Simon Otjes researched for NRC and the political blog pieceredvlees.nl data from the so-called LISS panel. There are more than seven thousand Dutch people in this panel. They have been questioned for years about, among other things, their political preferences, including last spring.

They receive dozens of questions such as: “Do you believe in salvation?” (Yes, say voters of SGP, Denk and ChristenUnie. Voters of Volt, PvdD, GroenLinks-PvdA and D66 score the lowest.) Or: ‘How much value do you attach to love and sexuality?’ (A lot, say voters of JA21 and Denk. Voters of FVD and SGP score the lowest.) Rooduijn and Otjes analyzed this information per party. Three things stand out.

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1. GroenLinks-PvdA is primarily GroenLinks

The blow of 2017 still lingers in GroenLinks-PvdA. Frans Timmermans’ merger party is stable in polls between 22 and 25 seats. But behind that horizontal line, Rooduijn and Otjes see a worrying development. Because the electorate is losing diversity, and the ‘GroenLinksification’ continues.

Until 2017, the PvdA had a diverse group of voters: higher and lower educated, rich and poor. That is how the PvdA was always intended, as a coalition between workers and the cultural elite. But the party started governing with the VVD in 2012, and lost by far the majority of its voters. Those voters have not returned, not even since the merger process with GroenLinks. Simon Otjes: “The group that you could call the classic working class, voters with a lower education who have difficulty making ends meet, have largely left and have not returned, not even now. In any case, that group of voters is not a large part of the Timmermans coalition.”

Education and social position increasingly determine whether you vote on the left, the data show. Approximately two-thirds of GroenLinks-PvdA voters have a higher vocational or scientific education, approximately twice as much as the national average. Voters have relatively high confidence in science and the media and can easily make ends meet.

Economically, GroenLinks-PvdA voters and the rest of the electorate are starting to diverge. Compared to the rest, they are getting better and better. And according to the researchers, the party’s total electorate is much more similar to traditional GroenLinks voters than to PvdA voters. Relatively young, highly educated, urban. That in itself is not surprising, Rooduijn and Otjes think. In each merger party, one movement often ultimately becomes dominant.

It is also striking that the party does not attract more voters with a migration background than the average of all other parties. This concerns about 20 percent of their voters. By comparison: Denk’s is approximately 80 percent. Simon Otjes: “In the field of migration, PvdA voters were more conservative than the GroenLinks. The current electorate here is closer to the GroenLinks of the past. Voters also call themselves more left-wing than PvdA voters did at the time.”

Economically speaking, GroenLinks and PvdA members traditionally did not do much better than average. The PvdA included many less educated people, while GroenLinks also included a relatively large number of women and students – groups with lower incomes. Otjes: “The current electorate is really growing into the highly educated middle class.”

Education level is the new pillarization, public administration experts Mark Bovens and Anchrit Wille wrote in their book Diploma democracy. This appears to be increasingly true, especially for the left. And that causes the merged party a problem: if they want to become the largest, they have to appeal to broader groups than they currently do.

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2. D66 takes a gamble

The happiest voters in the Netherlands can be found on the (center) right. They are doing relatively well economically and are satisfied with their lives. If you ask voters how happy they are, the VVD voters win, but those of the CDA and the Christian Union are very close. More or less the same thing happens when you ask voters to classify themselves on a ‘life ladder’: 1 is the worst possible life, 10 is the best possible life. Voters of D66, JA21, VVD and CDA give themselves a big 7.5. Think and FVD voters are around 6.5, a lot lower.

Voters of the VVD and D66 give many of the same answers when you ask them questions about their lives and work, they are very similar. This partly explains the change in direction of D66 under Rob Jetten. The social-liberal party focuses strongly on disappointed VVD members by also talking a lot about the economy and migration, and emphasizing national pride.

As long as things are not going well for the VVD, that is perhaps an understandable approach. The voters are similar and will probably soon feel at home with D66. But ask what voters find important, and they diverge again. For example, VVD members think much more negatively about immigration than D66 members. Simon Otjes: “It is a risky strategy. Their potential voters are usually more left-wing than the core electorate of D66. The growth opportunities are therefore more on the left than on the right.”

D66 undoubtedly knows this too. Political scientists say that the change of course must have more to do with something else: the situation after the elections. Otjes: “D66 has an interest in a large GroenLinks-PvdA. They have eaten their left-wing allies in elections in the past, after which they lost important parts with right-wing parties in the formation. If the left-wing bloc increases, they have a better chance of getting their plans done.”

The VVD is losing voters. This is not due to the party’s views, the researchers see. Most VVD voters think roughly the same: they are critical of immigration and against redistribution. But: doubters see themselves as more left-wing than the loyal supporters. And they are slightly less affluent. Otjes: “You can say: they keep Wassenaar. So the voters who are doing well and are satisfied with their lives.” Yesilgöz’s problem is the voters in less affluent parts of the Netherlands.

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3. The PVV voter hardly deviates anymore

Matthijs Rooduijn reads the first sentences of the PVV’s election manifesto: “This is your country! The Netherlands is full, overcrowded, packed. The PVV is in democratic resistance. (..) We are completely done with it.”

It’s classic Geert Wilders language. Yet the PVV is no longer the party of the dissatisfied, disengaged voter. The PVV voter has become much more like the average Dutch person, according to the researchers’ data. The PVV’s breakthrough in 2023 and its participation in government have made the party attractive to other voters. Voters who are less angry.

Matthijs Rooduijn says: “PVV voters were more likely to be lonely, which is now more or less average. There were always many more men than women. This is still the case among the hard core, the voters who always vote PVV. But in the outer layer around it, the number of men and women is balanced. The electorate is therefore becoming much more diverse.”

Another striking thing, if you look at happiness: voters of Denk and FVD are relatively unhappy and score below 7. PVV voters are much more similar to the national average, proof that the PVV’s supporters have become more diverse. Simon Otjes: “The PVV voter is often depicted as a homogeneous group. As if they are all unhappy, angry people. That is no longer the case.”

The stereotypical image that exists of the PVV member, says Otjes, is that of Cindy Slaper-Van der Werff, the Wilders supporter who asked a question about the deductible two years ago in the SBS debate. “But that picture must be nuanced. PVV voters look much more like the average Dutch person.” However, PVV members have on average much lower education and a significantly lower income than voters on the left and center right. The theory also applies here The diploma democracy: educational level largely determines the political preference of voters.

One issue distinguishes the PVV voter ideologically from the rest: immigration. PVV members think much more negatively about this. And they find the subject much more important than other voters. Even with voters who are also critical of migration, the differences are enormous.

Wilders has abandoned the idea of ​​winning voters with a more moderate style this campaign. Matthijs Rooduijn wonders whether Wilders’ tone, which again resembles that of his early years, is a good strategy. “His core supporters will like it. But I wonder whether he is also mobilizing other voters with this. Maybe he doesn’t want that at all, and only wants his core supporters to vote.”

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