Candidate Personality, Campaigning Strategies, and Electoral Results in the 2019 European Parliament Elections

The contemporary trend towards the “personalization” of politics suggests that candidates’ characteristics beyond their political profile participate to define their image and the campaigning choices they make. This, in turn, can drive their chances of electoral (in)success, as candidates’ profile and the content of their campaigns are powerful heuristics for voters. Building on this general intuition, this article tests two assumptions: (i) the candidates’ personality traits are closely associated with the content of their campaigns, and (ii) personality and campaigns interact to drive the candidates’ electoral fortunes at the ballot box. To test these assumptions, we present new evidence from a cross-sectional expert survey conducted across all EU countries in occasion of the 2019 European Parliament election; the survey asks samples of scholars experts in the politics and elections of each participating country to assess the campaigning style (negativity, emotionality, populism) and personality traits (Big Five and Dark Triad) of all major competing candidates in the election We expect candidates high in agreeableness and openness to make a weaker use of negative tone, character attacks over policy attacks, and fear appeals; they should however be more likely to use positively valenced appeals (enthusiasm). Extraverted should be more likely to take risks and use character attacks, contrarily to candidates perceived as high in conscientiousness; candidates high in psychopathy should be more likely to use harsh campaigns characterized by high negativity, character attacks and fear appeals, while making less use of positive emotional appeals (enthusiasm). Looking at electoral results, we expect candidates scoring low on agreeableness and high in psychopathy to have a greater success at the ballot box, and overall a positive effect on electoral success of a negative tone, fear appeals, and populist rhetoric.