ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Polit. Sci.
Sec. Political Participation
Who votes for Vox? Socioeconomic profiles and electoral shifts in the region of Madrid
Provisionally accepted
- University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
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The rise of the radical right in Europe is often explained by the so-called 'modernization losers' theory. This research shows that, at least in the Region of Madrid (RoM), Vox's electoral breakthrough does not align with this theory. Using a comprehensive database of income variables and election outcomes at the census section level, this study employs vote transfer matrices estimated through ecological inference to identify the characteristics of RoM Vox voters in both general and regional elections from 2016 to 2023. Our results reveal that it is the upper-middle and right-middle classes who enabled Vox's emergence and growth. It is only later—following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the implementation of mobility restrictions in 2020—that modernization losers began to join its electoral base. While the study primarily focuses on electoral supply, it also considers demand-side factors. The interaction between these elements, along with contextual influences, helps explain Vox's evolving support over the study period. Furthermore, this support is strongly shaped by the characteristics and discourse of the competing candidate from the traditional right.
Keywords: radical right, extreme right, Ecological inference, Voter transitions, elections
Received: 02 Oct 2025; Accepted: 17 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Roig, Espinosa and Pavía. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jose M. Pavía, pavia@uv.es
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