The economic context and electoral yield of a minority regional government: the Andalusia Government during the 2015-2018 period

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to determine the influence that the state of the economy had on the electoral behaviour of Andalusians in the regional election held on 2 December 2018. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the perception that Andalusians had of the economic situation and whether this determined their electoral response to a minority parliamentary government, sustained with the support of the Ciudadanos party. Both our findings and the subsequent results in the 2018 Andalusian Parliament election showed a clear erosion of the support for the incumbent PSOE party, as well as for the main opposition party (PP). Ciudadanos, which had acted as support party, doubled its electoral base and improved its results, as did Vox. They were the only two parties to improve their previous electoral results.