Geographical Realignment of the Hungarian Voting Behaviour Between 2014 and 2022

Abstract

One of the main aims of electoral geography is to examine the spatial and socio-economic relationships of voting behaviour. Based on this, strong social cleavages were identified in the developed democracies in the 1960s, which strongly determined voting behaviour. After the regime change, these cleavages were also utilized by Hungarian electoral geographers to describe the spatiality of voting behaviour. However, a decrease in the importance of these cleavages has been reported, with the market turn of the traditional left and the strengthening of the populist right, new alignments have been created. The present study examines the spatiality of Hungarian voting behaviour and its transformation applying quantitative methods to the last three parliamentary elections. Based on our results, with the populist rhetorical change of Viktor Orbán (who is the leader of Fidesz, the governmental party since 2010) that has occurred since the migration crisis (2015), he appeals much more to disadvantaged people in the economic crisis regions (the losers of globalization), in addition to being able to retain his party’s significant rural voter base, while its support is relatively decreasing in the economically active, educated, and high-income regions.

Keywords

• electoral geography
• populism
• voting behaviour
• urban-rural cleavage
• parliamentary election