Better Against Than in Favor: Environmental Issue Voting in the European Elections

The environmental issue has become prominent in the public debate and, consequently, is likely to correlate with voting preferences. We explore this by addressing the voting demand-side and the support to parties according to their distance from the voters' position on the environment. We considered the European Parliament elections in 2019 and employed both individual and party-level data to assess the role of environmental issue voting. We found that environmental issue voting has held relevance in affecting voting preferences across Western Europe. Nonetheless, this relevance has rewarded mostly those parties with anti-environmental positions, and those belonging to the radical right party family. Hence, although green parties have somehow held their electoral benefits on pro-environmentalism, this represents only one of the possible explanations for their growing vote share. These findings highlight the importance of the environmental issue voting and its potential divisiveness among the electorate.