The Democratic Party has a fairly stable electorate but among the outgoing flows the most relevant is that towards Action: a transmigration of consensus that involved between 10 and 20% of Democratic voters. This is what emerges from the estimates of the Cattaneo Institute which analyzed the electoral flows of ten cities, comparing the political elections of 25 September with those of 2018 and with the European ones of 2019. From the analysis it emerges that the votes of the M5S outgoing were directed towards abstention and the center-right but the movement led by Giuseppe Conte managed to partially compensate for the losses by drawing on two basins: that of its most loyal voters and that of abstentionists, a world in which flows are therefore bidirectional.
In Calenda votes from the Democratic Party (but also from the center-right)
The estimate of the voting changes recorded by the 2018 policies and the 2019 Europeans, based on the analysis of the large municipalities (Turin, Brescia, Genoa, Padua, Bologna, Naples, Salerno, Catanzaro, Catania), shows how the main channel that led votes to the party of Carlo Calenda, Action, and the Democratic Party: “The share of Calenda’s votes that comes from this source varies between about one third and about half, depending on the city considered”, reads the dossier. However, even voters who in 2019 had voted for the center-right, contribute to the result of the Third Pole: the share is on average 40% of the electorate of the new political group.
M5S recovers on abstention
Compared to the 2018 results, the M5s lost a large share of votes in favor of abstention everywhere. There is also a considerable share of support that goes towards the center-right: after having awarded the League to the Europeans, it mainly rewards Fdi. Compared to abstention, however, the flows are bidirectional: in all the cities, Conte’s party has huge losses, but in some cases it also has high recoveries from this basin: both flows are an indication of a strong contiguity of this electorate with the area of protest and disillusionment. Looking at the inflows, both with respect to 2018 and with respect to 2019, the M5S essentially draws on only two basins: that of its most loyal voters and that of abstentionists. In short, there are no significant entries from the left. “The second factor (recovery of abstention) – notes the Cattaneo Institute – perhaps also explains the distance between the expectations detected by the polls before the electoral campaign came to life and the final result”.
The votes of Fdi taken in the League
Where does the large amount of votes that Fdi, the winning party of the elections, managed to add to its constituency from about 4% to over 26% come from? Compared to the displacements since 2018, in the majority it is an internal reshuffling of the center-right: a large number of votes passes from Forza Italia and the Lega to the party that is now hegemonic in the coalition. Of much greater political significance is the flow that comes from the electoral basin of the center-left and in some cities especially from the M5s: it is most likely voters who have already passed through to the League in 2019. The flows from 2019 show that in the cities of the center- north considered in the analysis, the electorate of FdI is made up of more than 80% of voters who had already chosen center-right in the Europeans: the remainder is divided to varying degrees between recoveries from abstention and passages from the center-left electorate.