Caught in the Crossfire. Electoral Spillover Effects of Accommodating the Radical Right

September 23, 2026·
Jasmin Rath
Lukas Hetzer
Lukas Hetzer
,
Jan Berz
,
L. Constantin Wurthmann
,
Sarah Wagner
· 0 min read
Abstract
Mainstream parties face mounting pressure from radical right challengers. While existing research highlights the electoral costs of accommodating the radical right, we know less about how this decision affects potential coalition partners. When mainstream parties accommodate, this generates spillover effects for potential coalition parties that may be perceived as complicit in legitimising the radical right. We test this mechanism in Germany, exploiting an Unexpected Event during Survey Design: the CDU/CSU’s announcement of tougher migration policy and signaled openness to AfD support. We examine how initial supporters of the CDU/CSU’s potential coalition partners changed their vote intentions in response. We find that the event increased switching from the SPD to The Left by approximately three percentage points, with a similarly directed but statistically insignificant effect for the Greens. These results demonstrate that accommodating the radical right affects not only the accommodating party itself, but the broader coalition landscape in multi-party democracies.
Type
Publication
Party Politics (forthcoming)
publications
Authors
Jasmin Rath
Lukas Hetzer
Authors
Lukas Hetzer (he/him)
Doctoral Researcher

I am a doctoral researcher in Political Science at the University of Cologne, where I work on European politics, political behavior, political communication, and public opinion.

My research focuses on how citizens, political actors, and institutions respond to crises and broader political challenges. A recurring emphasis of my work is on democratic politics under pressure, with particular interests in European integration, crisis governance, institutional change, political representation, and the communication of political conflict.

Methodologically, I work at the intersection of political science and computational social science. I use large-scale text data, quantitative computational methods, advanced survey designs and (quasi-)experiments to study political discourse, public opinion, and political behavior. I am also interested in building, linking, and analysing large-scale political datasets, particularly institutional text data from parliaments and EU institutions.

I hold an M.Sc. degree in Social Sciences Research from the University of Amsterdam and a B.Sc. degree in Social Sciences from Humboldt University Berlin. Before joining the University of Cologne, I worked at GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences on election research and data-based knowledge transfer, and held research assistant positions at the University of Amsterdam, Ghent University, and Humboldt University Berlin. I also teach courses on quantitative methods, EU politics, and crisis politics.

Please feel free to explore my work and get in touch.

Authors
Jan Berz
Authors
L. Constantin Wurthmann
Authors
Sarah Wagner