Over the past decades, several of Europe’s established parties have lost substantial numbers of voters. At the same time, parties on the radical right and left, for example, have made electoral gains in several countries. While we know quite a lot about what drives the success of these parties, much less is known about what established parties do after they lose electoral support.
“My research shows that parties that suffer major or repeated electoral losses place greater emphasis on their core issues at the next election. For a social democratic party, for example, this could be welfare,” says Felix Lehmann, a doctoral student in political science.
He analysed election results from 18 Western European democracies between 1970 and 2025 and examined how parties’ election manifestos changed following electoral losses. He looked at whether parties devoted more attention to their core issues and whether they changed their positions on these issues.
“An ‘ordinary’ electoral loss was only weakly associated with how much attention parties devoted to their core issues at the next election. The relationship became clearer when a party lost support in several consecutive elections, especially when the losses were severe. The relationship was most pronounced when parties lost their place in government. In those cases, they placed substantially greater emphasis on their core issues. However, parties did not generally adopt more extreme positions on these issues, which surprised me,” says Felix Lehmann.
Postive for democratic representation
The study cannot establish why parties place greater emphasis on their core issues when voters turn away from them. According to Felix Lehmann, one possible explanation is that prolonged electoral decline changes the balance of power within parties, giving greater influence to those who are primarily motivated by policy and ideology.
For parties in crisis, placing greater emphasis on the issues that have traditionally defined them may give them a more distinctive profile. “I see this as potentially positive for democratic representation, because it can make it easier for voters to distinguish between the political alternatives offered by different parties. But whether a greater focus on core issues actually helps parties win back voters is a question for future research,” says Felix Lehmann.
