Covid-19 and Right-wing Vote Share: Evidence from the European Elections in Austria, Italy, and Sweden.

Using municipal data from Austria (n=2115), Italy (n=7894), and Sweden (n=290), we examine how Covid-19 shaped right-wing vote shares in the 2024 European elections versus 2019. We model the 2024-2019 vote-share differences using spatial regressions controlling for socio-demographic characteristics in three contrasting cases. Austria's Freedom Party (FPO) and the Italy's Lega and Fratelli d'Italia (FdI) opposed a large number of pandemic measures as being excessive. In contrast, Sweden Democrats opposed their government's lax response, demanding stricter measures. In Austria and Italy, right-wing vote-share gains are negatively correlated with vaccination rates and positively with post-pandemic unemployment. Furthermore, high excess mortality predicts poorer Italian right-wing performance, with mixed effects in Austria. In contrast, Swedish right-wing support is negatively linked to unemployment, with no significant impact of vaccination rates or excess mortality. These results suggest that the electoral rewards for opposing government crisis policies depend on the national context and party strategy.