In this paper, we study vote choices of voters who are left-wing on economic issues and authoritarian/nationalist on cultural issues, especially immigration. For these voters, there is no often party combining positions in this way. https://twitter.com/ElectoralStdies/status/1355475224087638018

In the data from the Campaign Panel of the German Election Study 2017, many voters prefer higher social benefits and taxes and want to restrict immigration. @ches_data show that no party bundles issue positions in this way.

In the article, we show that many such “left-authoritarians” perceive the party they voted for to also hold a left-authoritarian position. Interestingly, this includes many AfD voters who report a perceived left-wing economic position of the party.

Our statistical models study the interplay between this (mis-)perceived congruence and issue importance, using an open-ended question on the most important political problem in Germany.

We find that (mis-)perceived congruence and issue importance interactively shape the left-authoritarian vote. Simply, perceived congruence matters more on an important issue—and issue salience matters most if voters accurately perceive incongruent party supply.

Left-authoritarians who care most about immigration have a relatively high probability to vote for the AfD, largely no matter what its perceived economic position is. Left-authoritarians who care most about the economy (only) if they misperceive the party to favor higher taxes.

Similarly, caring most about the economy makes left-authoritarians (more) likely to vote for Die Linke. Yet, the combination of caring most about immigration and misperceiving the party to be restrictive on immigration also results in a high probability to vote for the party.

Free copies to the article are available (for a limited time) to the kind people who made it to the end of this thread: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1cV0cxRaZYb5K .

One last note: This article was finished for submission during very sad times for us and at our institution. We felt the need to bring this up and dedicated this article to the memory of our former boss, Edeltraud Roller.