Italian Elections and Politics 2022 - Our Time to Schlein

[EPG]

The Italian contradiction: Tuscany may be a historical left stronghold, but its left voters look quite a bit like Lega Nord voters from Lombardy.

[EPG]

I didn't think it was controversial that Tuscan PCI-PDS-PD affinity, including its strength among small business people and above-average earners quite disproportionate to elsewhere in Italy, was a sort of puzzle that had to be explained historically. Put another way, a lot of relatively higher-income people voted left in Tuscany, who would have voted right elsewhere, including in standard models of party systems, and this is interesting.

There's no inherent socio-economic reason why the old PCI Tuscan base should still be PD voters, except "political culture and socialisation", which can be eroded over time, and is eroding rapidly. There are simply not that many sociological differences between 21st century Tuscany and, to take an example, Lombardy. The developments of different kinds of opposition to Italian national-liberalism that made Lombardy Christian/white, and Tuscany Communist/red, appear to simply not matter any more. What remains is sympathy, which is contestable.

This isn't controversial, is it? We already saw this realignment happening in the last elections. Tuscany votes a lot less PD than it used to vote PCI, but often districts in big cities like Milan vote more PD than they used to, back in the old party systems. This is a forum for comparative politics. Would we expect a generic Social Democratic party to win Siena or Pisa, the way PD used to? Would we expect them to do unusually well in Tuscany at all?