The Incumbent Electoral Defeat in the 2011 Spanish National Elections: The Effect of the Economic Crisis in an Ideological Polarized Party System

Abstract

This article examines the effect of the economic crisis on voting preferences in the 2011 Spanish national election. Specifically we demonstrate that Spanish voters' reactions to the economic crisis were not uniform and that their evaluations of the economic situation and final electoral decisions were conditioned by prior ideological preferences. Our findings have several important consequences for the economic voting model. First, in a more polarized party system how voters evaluate the economic performance of the incumbent is a better predictor of vote choice than evaluations of the economy as a whole. Second, this effect varies depending on where parties are located and competing ideologically. Finally, those effects are more conditional on voters' ideological predispositions than the effects of voters' evaluations of the situation of the economy.