Using VAA generated data to analyse the profile of first time voters in the Spanish general elections of 2015: An exploratory analysis

This is the first attempt to explore the socio-economic profile of first-time voters in Spain. Contrarily to what could be expected, literature about first-time voter is practically non-existent, the main reason being the technical difficulty to obtain representative data rather than the lack of interest. Indeed, although it is a group of great interest, the problem of gathering representative data for this specific group is behind the absence of a profuse literature about them. Fortunately, the emergence of new methods of social research linked to ICTs, (VAA-Voting Advice Application) enable us to reach a much more efficient and meaningful way to reach and understand the political behaviour of those groups that are more difficult to analysed by traditional research methods. From the perspective of this analysis, first-time voters deserve particular attention in the current political moment in which the economic and political crisis in Spain is encouraging the emergence of new political parties highly tied to the idea of “new politics” in opposition to the “old fashion ideas and structures” typical of traditional parties. Media and electoral experts admit that a significant part of new parties´ electoral success in Spain (especially the success of Podemos and to a lesser extend Ciudadanos) is attributable to the younger cohorts of the electorate. This justifies a thorough and detailed analysis focused on the first-time voters that allow us to provide new insights on the political behaviour of those groups of citizens who are less tied by the habit of voting and less anchored by party identification.