Anti- Incumbency won
the 2024 European elections - Not the far right
Imogen Learmonth & Andrés Cremisini
Imogen Learmonth leads Datapraxis' thematic research, analyzing cross-country trends in public opinion and voting behavior. She has a background in counter-extremism research, focusing on radical misogyny and the incel movement.
Andrés Cremisini is a political data scientist at Datapraxis, where he focuses on analysis, polling and strategy.
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As the dust settled on the 2024 European Parliament elections (EPs), everyone agreed it had been a shockingly bad night for incumbents. In all but 3 countries (Belgium, Italy, Poland) parties in power domestically underperformed relative to their most recent national election results. Voter displeasure was particularly strong in the parliament’s biggest nations: Germany and France.
Germany’s SDP-led traffic light coalition lost 40% of the voters who had elected them in 2021 (representing a 21% swing in outright vote share). Macron’s base was cut in half, falling to 15% of vote share from around 30% in the 2022 presidential election.
Figure 1 - Results for incumbents - swing between most recent national election results and EP results (ordered from largest loss to biggest gain).
The second thing everyone agreed on was that it had been a good election for the far right. An accepted ‘fact’ which is only partially true.
Source: Datapraxis pre-election polling
Figure 2 - Results for the far right - swing between most recent national elections & EP result.
Source: Datapraxis analysis of official election results. The far right is defined as parties in the ECR + ID groups, plus NI parties such as Fidesz and the AfD which are classified as far right through internal analysis (and based on the ParlGov Codebook).
Far-right parties did better than average when it came to exploiting anti-incumbent sentiment from a position of opposition. In places where they were in power, however, the far right fared even worse than the average incumbent (with the important exception of Italy). The average swing away from far-right incumbents was 2 percentage points greater than the swing away from incumbents in other party groups.
Figure 3 - Average swing, most recent national elections to EP 2024. Far right vs other parties.
Source: Datapraxis pre-election polling. Far right incumbents: Fratelli d’Italia (Italy), Lega (Italy), PVV (Netherlands), Fidesz (Hungary), Sweden Democrats (Sweden), Finn’s Party (Finland)
The far right was the most efficient trader in anti-establishment sentiment, but typically floundered when part of the system.
The Dutch took the first available opportunity to signal dissatisfaction with the PVV (Party for Freedom) which had finished in first place in the November 2023 general election. Support fell in Finland and Sweden, where far right parties were part of incumbent alliances. In Portugal, on paper an outlier, Chega had performed well during a very close election just 2 months earlier, potentially impacting how voters showed up at the ballot box. Even Orban felt a bump in the night.
No one should take any comfort from these results, however. A total repudiation of those in power, rather than an unequivocal embrace of the far right, is hardly a cause for celebration. Allowing the far right to stumble into power and hoping they fail is not a strategy – nor does it take into account empirical gains for the far right’s agenda. With 189 seats, far-right groups now make up over 26% of the European Parliament (not including far-right non-affiliated MEPs). This is more seats than the EPP, the largest single party with 188 seats, and means that far right parties now represent the biggest voting bloc in parliament if they quorum together with sympathetic non-affiliated MEPs.
Formerly, the ‘pivotal MEP’, or the tie-breaking political dead center of parliament, was a member of the Renew Europe group, led by Macron’s Renaissance party. With this group decimated by anti-Macron sentiment in France, the pivotal MEP is now in EPP. Worse still, Rassemblement National’s 30-strong delegation coaxed Orban down from the non-affiliated fence and into Patriots for Europe, alongside the Czech Republic’s ANO, and Austria’s FPÖ – two parties that also gained seats in this election and represent the biggest delegations from their countries. Harms here are myriad. The Patriots want to roll back almost every EU progressive mandate, especially environmental legislation.
Demands for change
Across most countries polled by Datapraxis, voters who didn’t vote for the far right in their most recent election, but who intended to do so in the EPs, said they were voting for the party which ‘most represented change’.
Figure 4 - Reasons for voting, new far right voters in EP24.
Source: Datapraxis pre-election polling.
Ahead of the EPs, economic pressures (particularly associated with the cost of living and healthcare) featured among the top issues almost everywhere. Immigration was a factor in several countries, along with crime, climate, and geopolitical insecurity.
Figure 5 - Respondents’ most important issues.
Source: Datapraxis pre-election polling.
Incumbents across the continent failed to meet the moment and answer voters’ demands for change and anxieties about constantly rising prices. The far right was punished for this failure more severely than other incumbents – with one important exception. Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party was the sole far right incumbent (and one of the only incumbents overall) to increase its vote share. And Italy was the only country where new far right voters were more likely to say they were voting for the party with ‘the best leader’, rather than to say they were voting for the party ‘most likely to bring about change’.
Meloni continues to present a uniquely successful and threatening case of far right detoxification.
Whereas our data shows that far-right parties across the continent enjoy a trust advantage on immigration, they typically underperform when it comes to the cost of living. Meloni bucks this trend. The most persuasive ad Datapraxis tested in the whole of 2024 belonged to her EP campaign and featured ‘ordinary’ voters saying they would vote for “Giorgia” because, “she’s increasing funding for healthcare” and protecting Italy from “absurd rules imposed by Europe”.
There is a perceived competence vacuum on the economy which Meloni – and the far right more generally – can walk into virtually unopposed for as long as progressives fail to make compelling arguments for redistributive, pro-working class alternatives to the status quo.
When progressives do pass clear, popular policies on bread and butter issues – and take credit for it – evidence suggests they are rewarded at the ballot box. In the 2019-2023 legislature, for example, Spain’s left coalition government increased the minimum wage by 54%. During the general election in July 2023, when Sánchez won a second term, a majority of center-left and left voters cited “raising the minimum wage” as a “very important” issue in deciding their vote.
Figure 6 - Which party would perform best on the issues: within-sample voters intending to vote for far-right parties.
Source: Datapraxis pre-election polling.
Figure 7 - Top 3 reasons for party of planned vote, July 2023 general election, Spain.
Source: Datapraxis pre-election polling. Pedro Sánchez is the leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) and the current Prime Minister of Spain. Sumar is a left-wing electoral alliance constituted for the 2023 Spanish general election and led by Yolanda Díaz.
We must be cautious not to learn the wrong lesson from the EP24 election. Voters have experienced a heavy hit to living standards because of the recent period of high inflation. While their pain is inducing powerful anti-incumbent sentiment, this backlash is not indiscriminate. Voters are still responding to well-crafted economic offers that promise to ease the strain. Our task is to ensure that these offers come from the left, and not the far right.