International demographic/voting trends

[DC Al Fine]

This forum has all sorts of excellent commentary on American voting trends and geography,but surprisingly little about other countries. We know lots about the shift of WWC to the Republicans and the college educated to the Democrats, but surprisingly little about other countries. What are some big voting trends in the rest of the world?

Looking at Canada, I notice the following trends:

1) The Tories have made huge gains among Jews, Chinese, and 'white ethnics'

2) The NDP turning into a force in Quebec from essentially nothing (we shall see if that sticks)

3) Liberal dominance of Atlantic Canada

[VPH]

Canada seems to have more fluid party lines. Having moved here from the US, I realized that people aren't nearly as attached to a party, perhaps because of how much less polarized things are. That being said, White ethnics (Italian-Canadians, Portuguese-Canadians, etc) for example seem to only vote Liberal in Montreal.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I seem to remember seeing that in Italy, PD actually does best among the oldest age groups, which is pretty unique for left-wing parties.

[Tender Branson]

I seem to remember seeing that in Italy, PD actually does best among the oldest age groups, which is pretty unique for left-wing parties.

In Austria too: The SPÖ sucks among young people and does best with old, retired folks.

Other than that, our voting trends the last year pretty much looked like the ones in the US: a huge urban/rural divide between Left and Right and educational gap. Hofer did best with taxpaying (working-class) people in the labour force, whereas young people and retired people backed VdB by bigger margins.

[Mike88]

I seem to remember seeing that in Italy, PD actually does best among the oldest age groups, which is pretty unique for left-wing parties.

In Austria too: The SPÖ sucks among young people and does best with old, retired folks.

Other than that, our voting trends the last year pretty much looked like the ones in the US: a huge urban/rural divide between Left and Right and educational gap. Hofer did best with taxpaying (working-class) people in the labour force, whereas young people and retired people backed VdB by bigger margins.

Interesting. In Portugal, the youth vote usually is more favorable for the PSD than the older vote. But there is a curious trend between the young and older vote regarding the PCP and Left Bloc. The youth reject the Communists and vote for the Left Bloc while the elder vote gives the PCP vote shares above 10% while the Left Bloc can't get above 5%.

Beyond that, the urban-rural vote here is mixed. There are municipalties where the urban vote is more PSD-leaning and the rural vote more PS-leaning. The big split in Portugal is between the North and South. It's very similar to Italy's political divide and in Portugal's case the more conservative/more private estates in the North and Center vote by good margins for the PSD/CDS, while the south, beyond the Tagus river, more leftwing/more public estate, votes between the PS and Communists. And to point also, the PSD strongest performances in the South are in urban areas.

[parochial boy]

In Switzerland, the main cleavages have traditionally been language and religion, with the Francophone and protestant areas traditionally being more left wing and socially liberal.

While the language divide has, if anything, been exacerbated in recent times (especially over votes on immigration, which have caused some of the only tension between Germans and French that I have ever seen); the religious divide does seem to be on the way out. It was protestant cantons that were the first to embrace the rise of the UDC and, arguably the most left wing canton in the country, Jura, is both catholic and votes well to the left of the majority protestant runp that remained in Bern at the time of the secession.

Catholic areas  (notably the Valais, Appenzell Inner Rhodes and the Waldenstatten) are still the most conservative areas of the country,  but this is down to the new major divide, predictably between urban and rural areas. For example, all 8 of the country's biggest cities voted for the PS at the last federal election, including Lucerne and St Gall, which would traditionally be seen as very conservative towns.

[SATW]

Israel has a ton of cleavages that are interesting to analyze:

- Mizrahi, Sephardic Jews are more likely to vote Likud, Shas and for other right-wing parties
- Ethiopian Jews seem more left-leaning? Not completely sure on this.
- Arabs clearly vote for the Arab parties and if they don't, usually vote for Zionist Union or Meretz.
- Ashkenazi Jews vote more center to center-left, particularly for the Zionist Union, Meretz and Yesh Atid
- Poorer voters/working class voters support Likud, Shas
- Wealthy voters vote for more left-leaning parties, like the Zionist Union and Meretz
- Russian Jews vote for Yisrael Beiteinu, Likud and Zionist Union in that order (also depends what type of Russian Jews, whether they are post-USSR immigrants, or pre-USSR collapse immigrants)
- Older voters back the left more; younger voters the right.
- Divide between Secular and Religious Jewish voters is very clear and present. Secular voters prefer Zionist Union, Meretz on the left and Yesh Atid, Kulanu, Yisrael Beiteinu (Russian seculars) towards the middle or non-binary ideological spectrum.

I'm sure I'm wrong on some of the details,  but I think I got a good gist of some of the trends. If not, hope one the Israelis corrects me.

https://demotrends.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/the-demographics-behind-elections/ this link has some info about some of the trends I listed.

[danny]

Israel has a ton of cleavages that are interesting to analyze:

- Mizrahi, Sephardic Jews are more likely to vote Likud, Shas and for other right-wing parties
- Ethiopian Jews seem more left-leaning? Not completely sure on this.
- Arabs clearly vote for the Arab parties and if they don't, usually vote for Zionist Union or Meretz.
- Ashkenazi Jews vote more center to center-left, particularly for the Zionist Union, Meretz and Yesh Atid
- Poorer voters/working class voters support Likud, Shas
- Wealthy voters vote for more left-leaning parties, like the Zionist Union and Meretz
- Russian Jews vote for Yisrael Beiteinu, Likud and Zionist Union in that order (also depends what type of Russian Jews, whether they are post-USSR immigrants, or pre-USSR collapse immigrants)
- Older voters back the left more; younger voters the right.
- Divide between Secular and Religious Jewish voters is very clear and present. Secular voters prefer Zionist Union, Meretz on the left and Yesh Atid, Kulanu, Yisrael Beiteinu (Russian seculars) towards the middle or non-binary ideological spectrum.

I'm sure I'm wrong on some of the details,  but I think I got a good gist of some of the trends. If not, hope one the Israelis corrects me.

https://demotrends.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/the-demographics-behind-elections/ this link has some info about some of the trends I listed.

About right, just a few of quibbles:
Amongst parties that do well with the wealthy, you have to mention Yesh Atid.

Ethiopian Jews are a small enough and spread out enough group that you can't say definitively, but in the one neighbourhood that I know is majority Ethiopian (kiryat Moshe, Rehovot) Likud dominated Kulanu came second and Shas third. I don't know how you reached the conclusion that the left does well.

"- Poorer voters/working class voters support Likud, Shas" Amongst a certain subset of poor people, and even amongst them Kulanu also does well. amongst other poorer voters UTJ and the Joint List do well.

Likud has plenty of secular voters, and while significantly lower than the left/YA, It's probably similar to Kulanu.

[DC Al Fine]

How does that work in terms of the parties' economics? Does Likud not have much of a free market wing? Are economics a secondary concern for most voters?

[Intell]

Israel has a ton of cleavages that are interesting to analyze:

- Mizrahi, Sephardic Jews are more likely to vote Likud, Shas and for other right-wing parties
- Ethiopian Jews seem more left-leaning? Not completely sure on this.
- Arabs clearly vote for the Arab parties and if they don't, usually vote for Zionist Union or Meretz.
- Ashkenazi Jews vote more center to center-left, particularly for the Zionist Union, Meretz and Yesh Atid
- Poorer voters/working class voters support Likud, Shas
- Wealthy voters vote for more left-leaning parties, like the Zionist Union and Meretz
- Russian Jews vote for Yisrael Beiteinu, Likud and Zionist Union in that order (also depends what type of Russian Jews, whether they are post-USSR immigrants, or pre-USSR collapse immigrants)
- Older voters back the left more; younger voters the right.
- Divide between Secular and Religious Jewish voters is very clear and present. Secular voters prefer Zionist Union, Meretz on the left and Yesh Atid, Kulanu, Yisrael Beiteinu (Russian seculars) towards the middle or non-binary ideological spectrum.

I'm sure I'm wrong on some of the details,  but I think I got a good gist of some of the trends. If not, hope one the Israelis corrects me.

https://demotrends.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/the-demographics-behind-elections/ this link has some info about some of the trends I listed.

Any reason for this? Is there any reason for such a monstrosity of a class divide, I also want proof, as me leftist self can't believe it. *Sigh*

How was the vote for this in the past? Who did poorer/working class isreali's vote for in the past, compared to richer one's.

How do the kibbutz vote, both labour ones and religious ones. Want to go there one day, though it's being destroyed due to the opening of private business.

A leftist can dream the dream of the kibbutz can he not?

Also since there are different arab parties, ranging for communists to islamists, which arabs, vote for which?

[GMantis]

I seem to remember seeing that in Italy, PD actually does best among the oldest age groups, which is pretty unique for left-wing parties.

This is very common in Eastern Europe. In my country there's even a saying "red Granny".

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Any reason for this?

It's an incidental feature of Israeli voting patterns being dominated by ethnic and sectarian cleavages; Sephardic and Mizrahi families (who arrived following ethnic cleansing in the wider region from the 1950s onwards) are on average much lower down the income scale than Ashkenazi ones, etc.

And also because Left and Right don't exactly mean the same in Israel as elsewhere, denoting positions on existential/peace/security (use whatever word of combination of words you like best) as much as socio-economic matters. So pretty much uniquely for a secular party of the mainstream right the Likud is traditionally not explicitly antisocialist.

But then with party loyalties being so weak in Israel it's probably not so wise to act as if generalisations of the norm are ironcast or something; certainly the patterns on display in the 2006 election were... er... different.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

- Ethiopian Jews seem more left-leaning? Not completely sure on this.

Quite the opposite.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I seem to remember seeing that in Italy, PD actually does best among the oldest age groups, which is pretty unique for left-wing parties.

I think that's because it inherited a good proportion of the old DC electorate and also because elderly Commies. It makes sense. It should be renamed as the Party of the Historic Compromise imo.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I was about to add that there's no party on earth as ironic as the PD, but then I remembered that the remnants and dregs of the National Party merged into the ANC!

[Antonio the Sixth]

I seem to remember seeing that in Italy, PD actually does best among the oldest age groups, which is pretty unique for left-wing parties.

I think that's because it inherited a good proportion of the old DC electorate and also because elderly Commies. It makes sense. It should be renamed as the Party of the Historic Compromise imo.

Oh, it definitely makes sense. In addition to those factors, it's also because the last two political phenomena that had a strong generational impact seem to have been the Berlusconi cult in the 90s and early 00s and the and the still-ongoing M5S wave. By contrast, Renzi support doesn't seem to have made such a dent on younger voters in the general electorate (though I suspect it has within the PD).

[DavidB.]

- Ethiopian Jews seem more left-leaning? Not completely sure on this.

Quite the opposite.

Yeah, Ethiopians are solid Likud.

Any reason for this?

It's an incidental feature of Israeli voting patterns being dominated by ethnic and sectarian cleavages; Sephardic and Mizrahi families (who arrived following ethnic cleansing in the wider region from the 1950s onwards) are on average much lower down the income scale than Ashkenazi ones, etc.

And also because Left and Right don't exactly mean the same in Israel as elsewhere, denoting positions on existential/peace/security (use whatever word of combination of words you like best) as much as socio-economic matters. So pretty much uniquely for a secular party of the mainstream right the Likud is traditionally not explicitly antisocialist.

But then with party loyalties being so weak in Israel it's probably not so wise to act as if generalisations of the norm are ironcast or something; certainly the patterns on display in the 2006 election were... er... different.

In addition to the socio-economic factors Al mentions, the Labour movement was extremely Ashkenazi-centric and engaged in institutional discrimination against Mizrahi Jews in the country's early days. This was relevant not only in the political realm, but also in the economic and cultural spheres: traditional Mizrahi music was not played on the radio, for instance. Both politically and culturally, the Likud was much more in sync with Mizrahim than Labour, so when Likud emerged as the main alternative to Labour, most Mizrahim became solid Likud voters. Still, these groups are perhaps the most solid Likud demographic and certainly the ones that were part of the reason why Likud's victory in 2015 was surprisingly large and why turnout was surprisingly high: even if some of these people sometimes don't vote, they identify as Likud. Bibi's last-minute appeal worked with them.

You see this on the map: in places where Mizrahim form the large majority of the population (especially the so-called "development towns" that were built in the 1950s to accommodate the immigration waves from the Middle East), Likud support was through the roof. Likud received 23% of the national vote but 41% in Or Yehuda,  39% in Kiryat Gat, 43% in Sderot, 39% in Kiryat Shmona... and this doesn't even take into account Mizrahi Shas voters who, too, like Likud and Netanyahu. It also doesn't take into account Kulanu, the slightly less right-wing alternative to Likud led by Moshe Kahlon, who is Libyan. Likud+Shas+Kulanu got 35% nationally but 55% in Ofakim, 58% in Sderot, 57% in Kiryat Gat and 62% in Kiryat Shmona. They got 67% in the heavily Mizrahi neighborhood of Pat in Jerusalem (49% for Likud). Another 9% went to YB.

In general, newer immigrant wave groups all vote for the right. While Labour still got a sizeable share of the Russian vote in the 1990s, Russians have become a very (secular) right-wing demographic since the 2000s, generally voting for Likud or Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu. Again, this is visible on the map too. Likud + YB got 28.5% nationally but, for example, 55% in Ashkelon, 44% in Ashdod, 46% in Nahariyya and 45% in Karmiel.

"Cultural" reasons are most important here. Most new immigrants feel that the Israeli left is so far away from them culturally. In some ways there's really two different Israels, and the left just doesn't seem to appeal to the other Israel. Ari Shavit coined an interesting term for this: the WASPs (white Ashkenazi supporters of peace) vs. the rest. (Of course it's all a lot more ambiguous than this, but it's an important part of the political reality in Israel.) "The rest" may vote for a centrist party that's still reasonably hawkish and not adversarial to a more traditional Jewish lifestyle, but the large majority of them won't vote for the traditional Labour left.

[SATW]

Ah, I knew I got something wrong Yea, sadly, I don't know much about Ethiopian Jewish voting patterns. Glad to hear they lean likud though

@Intell: in regards to arab voters, currently, all of the major arab parties run together on an electoral alliance, called the Joint List, which encompasses most of the ideological factions of Arab Israel. But, not all arabs vote for this alliance. Some vote for Zionist union, and some also for Meretz, I believe.

On another note, Druze voters seem to have been divided from the results i've seen:

- Daliyat al-Karmel: 37.6% Kulanu
- Isfiya: 32.2% Kulanu
- Beit Jann: 46.0% Zionist Union
- Yarka: 37.0% Joint Arab List
- Hurfeish: 25.1% Kulanu
- Peki'in: 30.5% Yisrael Beiteinu (with Joint List at 30.1%!? I read there aren't many Jews left in Peki'in, so is are Druze here just that divided politically?)
- Julis: 41.5% Zionist Union
- Kisra-Sumei: 41.3% Yisrael Beiteinu
- Ein al-Asad: 27.3% Yisrael Beiteinu (and over 22% for Shas...wut.)


How did Druze vote in elections before 2015?

[DavidB.]

How did Druze vote in elections before 2015?

Depends entirely on their tribal allegiance. Akram Hasson got Kadima quite a lot of votes in previous elections.

[danny]

Ah, I knew I got something wrong Yea, sadly, I don't know much about Ethiopian Jewish voting patterns. Glad to hear they lean likud though

@Intell: in regards to arab voters, currently, all of the major arab parties run together on an electoral alliance, called the Joint List, which encompasses most of the ideological factions of Arab Israel. But, not all arabs vote for this alliance. Some vote for Zionist union, and some also for Meretz, I believe.

On another note, Druze voters seem to have been divided from the results i've seen:

- Daliyat al-Karmel: 37.6% Kulanu
- Isfiya: 32.2% Kulanu
- Beit Jann: 46.0% Zionist Union
- Yarka: 37.0% Joint Arab List
- Hurfeish: 25.1% Kulanu
- Peki'in: 30.5% Yisrael Beiteinu (with Joint List at 30.1%!? I read there aren't many Jews left in Peki'in, so is are Druze here just that divided politically?)
- Julis: 41.5% Zionist Union
- Kisra-Sumei: 41.3% Yisrael Beiteinu
- Ein al-Asad: 27.3% Yisrael Beiteinu (and over 22% for Shas...wut.)


How did Druze vote in elections before 2015?

Druze vote tends to be clientelistic rather than ideological, so voting for different parties doesn't necessarily mean a real difference between people.

[SATW]

Ah, nice. very interesting. I really like analyzing Druze culture throughout the Middle East. an interesting people, for sure.

[Intell]

Israel is an utterly fascinating place.

[SATW]

Israel is an utterly fascinating place.

Yea, I think even us Israel politics junkies sit in awe of how weird and interesting the political demographics of the country are.