Voters on the fringes more distrustful and angry, and less hopeful

20 November 2023

Voters of parties on the fringes feel more distrust, anger, and disgust towards politics, and less hope compared to supporters of other parties. This is evident from a representative study conducted by Communication Scientists Mariken van der Velden and Wouter van Atteveldt on emotions and trust among 2,400 Dutch voters.

The team asked respondents about their emotions when thinking about politics. The results indicate that distrust is particularly felt by supporters of BBB (74 percent), PVV (82 percent), and FvD (80 percent). However, even undecided voters (61 percent) and the support bases of SP (69 percent), PvdD (53 percent), and NSC (57 percent) express distrust. This is in contrast to VVD, CDA, and D66 voters, of whom a minority experiences that emotion.

These results align with the distrust of voters in institutions such as democracy, journalism, or science. Particularly, right-wing voters are pessimistic: for example, FvD supporters rate their trust in democracy with an average grade of 3.2, and PVV voters are not much more positive with a grade of 4.2. In contrast, supporters of D66, VVD, and Pvda/GroenLinks give their trust in democracy a solid passing grade. NSC and SP supporters fall in the middle, with an average grade just below 6.

"As with previous elections, we see that voters with little confidence tend to vote on the fringes, for radical-right parties like the PVV or FvD, but also for parties like the SP," explains Van Atteveldt. "What is interesting is that NSC manages to appeal to both low-confidence and high-confidence voters."

Distrust on the right-wing seems to go hand in hand with anger, an emotion experienced especially by BBB (31 percent), PVV (44 percent), and FvD (42 percent) supporters. The SP base, which scores relatively high on distrust (69 percent), surprisingly feels relatively little anger (22 percent).

Voters on the fringes feel little hope
In response to the question of how hopeful voters are, once again, the parties on the fringes stand out. The FvD base remains at 7 percent, the PVV at 16 percent, and the support bases of SP (32 percent), PvdD (36 percent), and BBB (28 percent) also feel relatively little hope. For comparison, the majority of GroenLinks/PvdA (59 percent) and CDA (69 percent) voters feel hopeful.

Hope generally correlates with disgust for politics: the more hopeful, the less disgust. However, CDA is an exception to this: although over two-thirds of CDA voters are hopeful, 43 percent feel disgust towards politics. This disgust makes it conceivable that some people considering voting for CDA might switch to another party, according to Mariken van der Velden. "Research shows that experiencing anger and distrust, in particular, is a reason to change your vote, while hope can confirm your party preference."