Decided to go through this systematically. Incumbent government performance in wealthy democracies since March 2022, when Ukraine invasion really spiked things upwards: 🧵
South Korea President (March 22) - incumbent term limited, incumbent party lost
Malta (March 22) - incumbent Labour party re-elected, gains seats
Hungary (April 22) - incumbent Orban govt re-elected with larger majority
Serbia (April 22) - incumbent Pres re-elected but loses Parliamentary majority
France (April/June 22) - incumbent Pres re-elected with reduced share, loses majority in Nat Assembly
Slovenia (Apr 22) - incumbent govt defeated
Australia (May 22) - incumbent right wing govt defeated
Sweden (Sept 22) - incumbent left wing govt defeated
Italy (Sept 22) - far right coalition led by Meloni sweeps aside previous governing parties LN and M5S
Bulgaria (Oct 22) - largest party in governing coalition falls sharply, change of govt
Denmark (Nov 22) - centre-left govt re-elected, PM party gains seats
Israel (Nov 22) - messy result, but sees incumbent PM replaced and Netanyahu return
Estonia (Mar 23) - messy result, party which topped poll previous time falls, party of PM Kallas (who took over mid term) gains
Bulgaria (Apr 23) - messy, far right and populists make most gains
Finland (Apr 23) - centre-left govt coalition defeated, right and radical right opposition parties make strong gains
Greece (May/June 23) - centre-right govt re-elected
Spain (July 23) - centre-left govt clings on despite big gains for centre-right oppo, rad rt falls sharply
Slovakia (Sep 23) - incumbent govt defeated by populist opposition
New Zealand (Oct 23) - centre-left incumbent defeated by centre-right opposition
Poland (Oct 23) - rad rt incumbent defeated by centre-right opposition
Switzerland (Oct 23) - rad rt gain seats, greens and liberals lose seats
Netherlands (Nov 23) - governing coalition parties fall sharply, rad rt tops the poll
Portugal (Mar 24) - centre left govt defeated by centre right oppo
Croatia (Apr 24) - incumbent coalition re-elected, greens gain most seats
European Parliament (Jun 24) - Greens, Liberals and centre left lost ground, radicals of left and right gain ground
Belgium (June 24) - PM's party loses most of its seats. Belgian govts are messy
France (June/July 24) - incumbent President's party gets a pasting, far right and far left make gains
UK (July 24) - incumbent centre-right govt wiped out in a landslide, but with big vote gains for Greens, rad rt and rad left independents
Austria (Sep 24) - big losses for gov coalition of centre-right and greens, big gains for rad rt
Lithuania (Oct 24) - big losses for largest party in govt coalition
Japan (Oct 24) - LDP, near permanent party of govt, defeated
US (Nov 24) - centre-left incumbent Dems defeated
We've also had a bunch of bad to historically bad results in poorer democracies too, including ANC losing majority in S Africa, BJP losing majority in India, governing party defeated for the first time ever in Botswana, incumbent Pres defeated in Brasil, etc. Tough time to be an incumbent!
Three big lessons here IMHO - (1) voters have been punishing incumbents everywhere, regardless of political orientation, length in office etc (2) Voters have been switching to all kinds of opposition, regardless of political orientation but...(3) radical anti-system parties (of right and left) have done well in many places, again regardless of who's in govt
Trump benefitted from all three trends - he's running against the incumbent, as leader of the only opposition, and he's seen as radical/anti-system
More systematic analysis of the anti-incumbent trend here from @jburnmurdoch
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