The electoral behaviour of voters with migration backgrounds and natives at the 2015 and 2019 Swiss National Elections. Two completely different stories?

Overview & Synopsis

There is emerging understanding in the literature that voters who have a migration background across Western countries tend to vote for left leaning parties. Yet little is known about whether this implies different drivers of vote choice for citizens with migration background in comparison to natives. This article intends to respond to this question by studying the impact of specific policy issue considerations on the vote of citizens with both migration and non‐migration background. To do so, we focus on the 2015 and 2019 Swiss National elections, relying on data from the SELECTS post‐electoral studies. Our analyses show that, while Swiss natives' voting choices are consistently affected by key political issues (i.e., foreigners' job market integration and the environment respectively), non‐native voters are generally less driven by the main topics discussed at each election, although relevant differences emerge across different migrant backgrounds.