Italian Elections and Politics 2022 - Our Time to Schlein

[MRCVzla]

Despite the national-level brokeup, today were held the Primaries of the "large camp" area (PD+M5S+left) for the coalition' presidential candidate in the upcoming Sicilian regional election. Most of the votes were online and turnout was more than 2/3 of the less of 50k inscrits. MEP Caterina Chinnici (PD) will be the coalition' candidate, the M5S has conceded the result
https://twitter.com/ItalyElects/status/1550966577453047811

In other nationwide news relate to the now weak "MoVimento", Beppe Grillo reconfirmed the party' two-term limit policy who barres to run any of the party MPs who are on parliament since 2013 (and probably one of the reasons of the Di Maio' faction spilt from the party). This caused the return to the party of Alessandro Di Battista, one of the politicians most linked to the M5S' original populist/anti-system stances and who was disastified with the Di Maio/pro-Draghi direction of the party.

[Oppo]

or quite a number of Southern voters (particularly in Sicily I think), who appear to skew unemployed.

There seemed to be a lean towards housewives, or am I misremembering?

Probably. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if the strongest predictor of FI vote was how many hours of TV per day a person watched on average between, say, 1990 and 2010.

A rather exhaustive study came to that conclusion — Mediaset really dumbed down Italians into voting for Silvio.

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.20150958

[Antonio the Sixth]

or quite a number of Southern voters (particularly in Sicily I think), who appear to skew unemployed.

There seemed to be a lean towards housewives, or am I misremembering?

Probably. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if the strongest predictor of FI vote was how many hours of TV per day a person watched on average between, say, 1990 and 2010.

A rather exhaustive study came to that conclusion — Mediaset really dumbed down Italians into voting for Silvio.

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.20150958

Thanks for sharing. This is terrifying but not at all surprising, as it's been the sort of thing people in Italy have noticed anecdotally for a long time.

[jaichind]

https://www.youtrend.it/2022/07/22/simulazione-youtrend-cattaneo-zanetto-co-senza-alleanza-pd-m5s-supermaggioranza-in-parlamento-per-il-centrodestra/

YouTrend has the Right-wing alliance with a small majority of the seats if PD and M5S get into an alliance.    I am skeptical about how transferable the PD and M5S votes are to each other.



It has a bigger Right-wing alliance majority if PD and M5S fight separately.



An a ultra-thin majority for the Right-wing alliance if everyone gangs up on them

[jaichind]

Bloomberg: "Italy’s Democrats are weighing possible alliances for the country’s national elections in September and will decide in the coming days and weeks on the makeup of any new coalitions, party leader Enrico Letta said in an interview with la Repubblica published Sunday."

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

or quite a number of Southern voters (particularly in Sicily I think), who appear to skew unemployed.

There seemed to be a lean towards housewives, or am I misremembering?

Probably. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if the strongest predictor of FI vote was how many hours of TV per day a person watched on average between, say, 1990 and 2010.

A rather exhaustive study came to that conclusion — Mediaset really dumbed down Italians into voting for Silvio.

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.20150958

Thanks for sharing. This is terrifying but not at all surprising, as it's been the sort of thing people in Italy have noticed anecdotally for a long time.

I had already seen this study* and the effect of early exposure to Mediaset is definitely eye-popping but also hardly a very strong correlation (it's also probably in the past now, since the study notes it was "transferred" to the M5S in 2013 and all the electorate shifts in the last decade must have shaken it twelve times over). I am sure watching more Mediaset in later decades has a significant correlation with voting to the right, but that has the risk of confusing cause and effect.

*Side note: the study deserves to be trashed regardless of everything else just for asserting the PD existed in 1994 and never correcting the mistake, jao.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Despite the national-level brokeup, today were held the Primaries of the "large camp" area (PD+M5S+left) for the coalition' presidential candidate in the upcoming Sicilian regional election. Most of the votes were online and turnout was more than 2/3 of the less of 50k inscrits. MEP Caterina Chinnici (PD) will be the coalition' candidate, the M5S has conceded the result

Floridia getting 33% of online votes and only 14% of in-person votes is classic M5S... in general online primaries are a terrible idea but what can I say, I guess better than nothing.

I still think Musumeci will be re-elected, but I suppose Chinnici has a chance if the right decides to shoot itself in the foot (not unlikely given many of them don't want Musumeci starting from Gianfranco Miccichè). Personally I would have preferred Fava as the centre-left candidate, although he probably couldn't win either vote.

[Oppo]

Apparently he lost a bet with Berlusconi…idk about you guys but he looks disgusting now

https://twitter.com/antonio12i/status/1551165504819286017?s=21&t=RIGv6Fqd4us...

[Antonio the Sixth]

Letta confirms that the alliance with M5S is dead and buried but opens to a broad "progressive democratic" alliance including IV, Azione, IpF and the whole galaxy to the left of PD. It's exceedingly unlikely that all of them will play ball. We'll see how many he manages to get.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

How well is Renzi expected to do ? What's he been up to in all this ?

[Middle-aged Europe]

How well is Renzi expected to do ? What's he been up to in all this ?

Is usually polling at 2-3%.

[jaichind]

(Bloomberg) --Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy gains in Italy polls, leading with 23.8%, followed by the Democrats at 22.5% and Matteo Salvini’s League at 13.4%, according to Quorum/Youtrend poll for SkyTG24 published Monday.
Five Star at 9.8%, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia at 8.3%
In case of Democrats’ coalition with centrist parties only, rightwing bloc would win with 45.3% versus 36.3%; in case of Democrats’ coalition with Five Star the rightwing bloc would win 48.1% to 34%

[xelas81]

Wil the Sicilian regional election be held before or at the same time as the national election?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Wil the Sicilian regional election be held before or at the same time as the national election?

We don't have an official date yet but it is very likely that the regional election will be held after the national election (the last one in 2017 was on 5 November).

[MRCVzla]

Speranza has given the OK for Articolo 1 to run together in a common list with PD (on Wednesday the party leadership would make the decision official), the PSI will also join this list which will be called "Democrats and Progressives" (ofc along with the PD symbol). Today was also the presentation of the appeal for a "republican pact" by Azione and +Europa, where once again they reinforce their position against the centre-right and everything that is or has been related to the M5S, while not closing to a return to the centre-left alliance.

In more scoop related to the formation of the center-left coalition...
https://twitter.com/SBidimedia/status/1551622548357521411

More and more insistent voices speak of an agreement between PD, Azione/Più Europa, a Centrist list (Di Maio and others), EV-SI. Renzi out of the center-left.
Could this be why the former PM presented a new symbol in recent days?

(Probably if this scenario turns out to be true, this will ultimately atract Toti to team up with Renzi and run alone, even though the two combined (according to polls) are around -if not below- the 3% threshold for the PR quota).

[PSOL]

I see the coalition of chaos is forming, let’s see if they flop as hard as NUPES or like the Hungarian mess.

A lot of these party leaders are so out of touch with their own voters, no wonder the edgy fashies are going to win hard.

[Antonio the Sixth]

lmao, if Renzi really wants to go alone against a coalition that goes all the way from Speranza to Calenda, he really doesn't give a sh*t anymore. He'd rather destroy any political relevance he might have had than cooperate with Letta. I guess I shouldn't be surprised but I am, a little bit.

[jaichind]

lmao, if Renzi really wants to go alone against a coalition that goes all the way from Speranza to Calenda, he really doesn't give a sh*t anymore. He'd rather destroy any political relevance he might have had than cooperate with Letta. I guess I shouldn't be surprised but I am, a little bit.

Could not one counterargue that if the Right wing bloc is going to win no matter what then Renzi should prioritize holding on to his limited vote base?  Joining a Center-Left bloc would just mean his voters drift back to PD.  There is an argument that Renzi should try to expand his vote base which gives him more bargaining power next election when there is a chance that a Center-Left bloc can win.

[Estrella]

lmao, if Renzi really wants to go alone against a coalition that goes all the way from Speranza to Calenda, he really doesn't give a sh*t anymore. He'd rather destroy any political relevance he might have had than cooperate with Letta. I guess I shouldn't be surprised but I am, a little bit.

Could not one counterargue that if the Right wing bloc is going to win no matter what then Renzi should prioritize holding on to his limited vote base?  Joining a Center-Left bloc would just mean his voters drift back to PD.  There is an argument that Renzi should try to expand his vote base which gives him more bargaining power next election when there is a chance that a Center-Left bloc can win.

his what

Renzi's centrism can be summed up as "everyone hates me, therefore I'm right". Nobody who doesn't already vote for him will be convinced to back him in five years. Of course you could say that everyone hates Berlusconi and he still keeps getting his 45% 30% 15% 7%, but the difference is that he has an actual base, decrepit as it is. Renzi isn't polarizing because you need two poles for that.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

lmao, if Renzi really wants to go alone against a coalition that goes all the way from Speranza to Calenda, he really doesn't give a sh*t anymore. He'd rather destroy any political relevance he might have had than cooperate with Letta. I guess I shouldn't be surprised but I am, a little bit.

Could not one counterargue that if the Right wing bloc is going to win no matter what then Renzi should prioritize holding on to his limited vote base?  Joining a Center-Left bloc would just mean his voters drift back to PD.  There is an argument that Renzi should try to expand his vote base which gives him more bargaining power next election when there is a chance that a Center-Left bloc can win.

Renzi has no actual vote base, wtf. Going alone is if anything more likely to make his share further plummet, and in any case this would be an incredibly stupid bargain when he is at serious risk of not clearing the threshold.

[Antonio the Sixth]

lmao, if Renzi really wants to go alone against a coalition that goes all the way from Speranza to Calenda, he really doesn't give a sh*t anymore. He'd rather destroy any political relevance he might have had than cooperate with Letta. I guess I shouldn't be surprised but I am, a little bit.

Could not one counterargue that if the Right wing bloc is going to win no matter what then Renzi should prioritize holding on to his limited vote base?  Joining a Center-Left bloc would just mean his voters drift back to PD.  There is an argument that Renzi should try to expand his vote base which gives him more bargaining power next election when there is a chance that a Center-Left bloc can win.

In addition to what has been said, it's just not the case empirically that parties do better when they run autonomously rather than as part of a coalition. If anything, experience suggests the opposite. PRC, PdCI and the Greens got a combined 10% when they ran as part of L'Unione in 2006. Two years later when they ran against the PD-backed coalition they only got 3%. SEL in 2013 did better than RC as well. And before you say this is only an issue on the left, centrist outfits running outside of the main two coalitions also have a rich history of underperforming their initial polling. Chances are this is what will happen to Renzi as well if he decides to run alone - and given that his starting point is just 2-3%, that doesn't bode well for his survival.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, 'Genepool DCs for Unspecified Reform!!!!!' is not a massive section of the electorate, to put it mildly, and by this point everyone else thinks that Renzi is (how shall we put it) a fine example of a Country Member.

The tendency for small parties to poll better when they form part of joint lists seems at first to be bizarre as that's really not how things work elsewhere, but it makes perfect sense if you think of parties and lists as the average Italian voter does. No one wants to waste their vote and, frankly, most of these parties and lists won't be around (at least not in the same form, with the same branding) next time round, so it becomes a matter of functional electoral credibility.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I see the coalition of chaos is forming, let’s see if they flop as hard as NUPES or like the Hungarian mess.

There's a big difference between NUPES, which underperformed but only about as badly as the shambolic rightist government it exists to A-Log did, and the Hungarian disaster. A center-left-to-left pole doing relatively as well in the Italian context as NUPES did in the French one would be on the rosier side of expectations.

[Oryxslayer]

I see the coalition of chaos is forming, let’s see if they flop as hard as NUPES or like the Hungarian mess.

There's a big difference between NUPES, which underperformed but only about as badly as the shambolic rightist government it exists to A-Log did, and the Hungarian disaster. A center-left-to-left pole doing relatively as well in the Italian context as NUPES did in the French one would be on the rosier side of expectations.

Yes, barring a reversal (on the part of both partners) and reconfiguration of the PD-M5S alliance, there just arn't the votes for PD + minors to do anything else than lose with dignity. M5S at this point still has a clear identity and platform distinct from everyone else, so its hard to imagine the electoral squeeze occurring as voters go to the bigger alliances...and not all if forced to choose would pick the PD's alliance over the conservatives.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Yeah, 'Genepool DCs for Unspecified Reform!!!!!' is not a massive section of the electorate, to put it mildly, and by this point everyone else thinks that Renzi is (how shall we put it) a fine example of a Country Member.

Renzi loves to talk about the European Union and about how 'worldly' he is (which of course is a pretty genepool Christian Democrat thing to do, in spite of some people thinking that one can only be turbodeplorable on all issues at once) but he is definitely the wrong person and the wrong personality to capture the votes of the sort of educated young person who cares an outsized amount about that. Enter on the scene Carlo Calenda...