Leadership based voting in parliamentary democracies is often said to be caused by three interrelated phenomena: voter dealignment, media logic and the rise of populism. This paper looks at the individual level to see for whom the party leader is most decisive in their vote choice. Dealigned voters, it turns out, are not influenced more by their leader evaluation when voting. Further, contrary to media malaise explanations, voters who watch more campaign debates, or consume more media in general, are not more prone to a leadership based vote. Cynical voters, typically the support base of populist parties, are even much less likely to base their vote on the party leader. Instead, a range of personal characteristics is associated with leadership voting, such as trust in the future, political sophistication and gender. These conclusions are supported by analysis of the Dutch Parliamentary Election Studies of 2010.
