Profiting from the crisis? Analyzing support for male and female members of the executive

Why do citizens appreciate their government in times of crises? During the Corona crisis most executives profited from increased popular support in spite of the hard measures they inflicted upon the population. Comparable to typical “rally around the flag” moments when countries go to war citizens showed strong support for established career politicians in their executive and populist politicians seemed to lose their appeal. We study this effect of support for the executive in more detail by analyzing to which degree the support for the executive depends on political experience and gender as well as the frequency and type of social media use and degree of political sophistication. We study the impact of these factors based on a representative two-country survey of 2000 citizens in Germany and Switzerland conducted during the Covid19 crisis.