When will voters re-elect populists? Lessons from COVID-19 in Brazil (Supplementary material)

As a result, while a typical voter at the national level may have been more interested in the healthcare costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, their electoral focus shifted to the economy in more competitive municipalities. This is a novel result on the electability of incumbent populists, implying changing perceptions of political competence when elections become more competitive. This result helps explain re-election strategies of incumbent populists who tend to downplay failures in managing the COVID-19 healthcare crisis and emphasise the state of the economy.

Our results imply that populists can indeed boost their re-election chances if they exploit this political trade-off.