The PVV’s last-minute spurt in the November elections is due to the party’s anti-migration stances and the campaign dynamics of recent weeks. “When PVV voters started talking about the housing shortage or social security, they linked it to the migrant as the cause of the problems experienced,” says professor of sociology at Radboud University, Niels Spierings.
Spierings concludes this on the basis of the National Voter Survey that he conducts with scientists Marcel Lubbers, Kristof Jacobs and Remko Voogd. The National Voter Survey has been conducted since 1971 and is one of the leading studies in the field of voting behavior in the Netherlands. The researchers published the first preliminary results of the study on Thursday political scientists blogstukroodvlees.nl.
For the research, the scientists take measurements up to two weeks before the elections and a measurement after the elections. Until two weeks before the elections, the PVV’s gain, as reflected in the election results, was not yet visible in the Voter Survey. That shows that PVV won in a final sprint.
In particular, voters who considered voting for the BoerBurgerBeweging or New Social Contract two weeks before the elections ultimately chose the PVV on November 22.
According to Spierings, the frame that Wilders did well in the campaign played a major role. PVV voters thought so too – although on average they followed the campaign and polls less than others. And it helped that the VVD again said it wanted to work with the PVV, says Spierings.
It was also important that the central question in the campaign was often who would become the largest, says the researcher. In that context, a final poll by Maurice de Hond was published on the Sunday before the elections, in which VVD and PVV were jointly in the lead. “It was measured out enormously.”
Winner effect
Voters mainly cited Wilders’ anti-migration stance as a motivation for voting PVV. And they wanted to prevent GroenLinks-PvdA from becoming the largest.
The anti-migration attitude of PVV voters sometimes mixes with voters’ economic problems, the researchers saw. “Then people say: my children have difficulty finding a house and that is the fault of migrants.” They do see that PVV voters consider it more important that fewer migrants arrive than that more homes are built.
Voters of NSC, BBB and to a lesser extent the VVD think more or less the same as PVV members about migration, the researchers see. Just like PVV voters, they believe that immigration should be reduced and that migrants who do come should adapt as much as possible. Voters believe they should not be allowed to preserve their own culture.
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The PVV voter is relatively distrustful when it comes to politics. That distrust has partly been removed by Wilders’ win. Spierings calls this a well-known winner effect. He finds it striking that this is now happening in a party where confidence among voters is generally low.
The idea that many Muslims would vote for the PVV is refuted by the researchers. In the sample, 2 out of 120 Muslims voted for Wilders. “Not surprising. But Wilders did make that claim and media wrote that too. That turns out to be incorrect.”
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