Literature on personalization of politics emphasizes growing salience of individuals and private issues when party democracy declines. These trends are believed to strengthen personal appeal of politicians. However, what is the secret of party-leader’s personal appeal? Are leader’s personal traits the major key to popular sympathies? The paper examines impact of voter’s perception of party-leader along Big Five and personal charisma on leader appeal. Analysis of Lithuanian panel data (2012), with party-leaders’ popular appeal, measured with “feeling thermometer”, and perception of leaders’ personality traits, measured with semantic differentials, reveals that leader’s personality perceptions, especially temperamental traits (Extraversion, Neurotism), better explain populist leaders’ appeal. Openness bares no significance. Conscientiousness and Agreeableness hold substantial explanatory power in all cases, with regression models including voter’s partisanship, political interest, evaluation of economic policy performance and sociodemography. Distinct patterns of significance of personality factors for leader appeal offer promising directions to refine political personalization theory.
