It’s not just boomers, young people are voting
far right too
Ahead of the European election, striking data shows
where Gen Z and millennials’ allegiances lie.
In Portugal, the far-right party Chega, which means
“enough” in Portuguese, drew on young people’s frustration with the housing
crisis, among other quality-of-life concerns. |
MAY 29, 2024 10:46 AM CET
BY HANNE
COKELAERE
Far-right
parties are surging across Europe — and young voters are buying in.
Many
parties with anti-immigrant agendas are even seeing support from first-time
young voters in the upcoming June 6-9 European Parliament election.
In Belgium,
France, Portugal, Germany and Finland, younger voters are backing
anti-immigration and anti-establishment parties in numbers equal to and even
exceeding older voters, analyses of recent elections and research of young
people’s political preferences suggest.
In the
Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration far-right Freedom Party won the
2023 election on a campaign that tied affordable housing to restrictions on
immigration — a focus that struck a chord with young voters. In Portugal, too,
the far-right party Chega, which means “enough” in Portuguese, drew on young
people’s frustration with the housing crisis, among other quality-of-life
concerns.
The
analysis also points to a split: While young women often reported support for
the Greens and other left-leaning parties, anti-migration parties did
particularly well among young men. (Though there are some exceptions. See
France, below, for example.)
Still in
some countries, the far right’s popularity did not always translate to becoming
favorites of the youth. In 2022, while Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s
far-right Brothers of Italy received votes from every age bracket, data
suggested the young favored left-wing parties more.
German and
Finnish data suggests the leftist Greens — which capitalized on the youth vote
in the past — are now losing ground.
Young
voters across Europe are veering toward newer parties, which include far-right
platforms, whereas many long-established, centrist parties still rely on
support from older voters, said Josse de Voogd, a Dutch researcher who has made
electoral geography his specialty.
“AfD in
Germany doesn’t even have to grow to become the largest, because [the
Socialists] and the [Christian Democrats] will naturally shrink, and the young
voters are scattered across all parties,” he said, referring to the far–right
Alternative for Germany.
POLITICO
took a closer look at the youth vote in five EU countries:
France
In France,
the far-right National Rally led by 28-year-old rising star Jordan Bardella,
can count on widespread sympathy among young folk.
In an Ifop
poll in April, 32 percent of 18-to-25-year-olds said they’d vote for the
National Rally if the election were held the following weekend.
Some 17
percent said they’d cast a vote for the far-left France Unbowed, making it a
distant second. More centrist leftwing and rightwing parties, including
President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance, trailed even further behind, with just
6 percent.
Bardella’s
strong presence on TikTok might have something to do with it: Pollsters found
that about one-third of young people said they rely on the app to follow the
election campaign.
That’s not
to say Bardella is well-liked across the board: The young MEP emerged from the
survey as both the second-best liked, and the second most-disliked candidate
among France’s youngest voters.
The survey
results also don’t automatically translate into electoral success, as the
researchers estimated just 30 percent of young people would end up casting a
ballot.
Portugal
Portugal’s
far-right Chega won 18 percent of the votes in the March general election.
But
according to survey data, one in four 18 to 34-year-old voters cast a ballot
for the party.
While
Portugal’s oldest voters loyally backed the Socialist Party, young voters tend
to lean more toward “new” parties — such as Chega, but also the Liberal
Initiative or the greens — rather than well-established parties, researchers
found.
The party
had broader male backing, but researchers said it had also made strides among
women.
Belgium
The
anti-immigration and separatist Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang) party can
count on the sympathy of the Flanders’ youth vote — more particularly, that of
young men.
Polls ahead
of regional, national and EU elections in June suggest the party could get more
than 25 percent of the Flemish vote.
But if
Gen-Z men — up to 27 years old — were to decide, it would get even more.
Nearly 32
percent said that they were very likely to, at one point, vote for Flemish
Interest. Only nine percent of women in that age bracket said the same.
Researchers
found a similar, though less pronounced, divide among Millennials.
“Flemish
Interest is very well aware of this, and explicitly targets young women in its
campaign to adjust its image,” said Peter Van Aelst, a professor at the
University of Antwerp. The party’s campaigns don’t feature “the boxing gloves
of old, but rather a very feminine, soft image,” he said.
Germany
A “Youth in
Germany” study found a shift in the favorite party of the country’s 14 to
29-year-olds, with 14.5 percent saying they’d vote for the far-right
Alternative for Germany.
By far the
largest group — 25 percent of respondents — were undecided.
In 2022,
the Greens and the liberal Free Democratic Party were still young people’s
parties of choice.
Like in
Belgium, there’s a clear gender divide: Young women leaned left, young men
tended to favor right-wing parties — and showed far broader support for
Alternative for Germany. Women also reported being undecided more often than
men.
Finland
Finnish
researchers have drawn similar conclusions.
The
anti-immigration right-wing Finns Party placed second in Finland’s 2023 general
election with 20 percent of the vote. According to analysis of the results, it
had been the most popular party in all but the oldest age bracket.
Voters
older than 65 had, by and large, remained loyal to centrist parties such as the
social democrats, the liberal-conservative KOK, and the liberal Center Party.
But the
Finns Party was a favorite in other age brackets, performing miles ahead of
other parties among younger men.
Like in
Germany, researchers noted that young voters, young women in particular, far
more than older ones, favored parties like the Left Alliance and the Greens,
but that the Greens had lost ground since 2019.
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