Gender and sexuality in diverging ideological constellations among potential PRR voters

While supply-side literature has shown complex but not trivial interplay between nativism, populism, and gender & sexuality, studies addressing the role of sexuality and gender in the electoral potential of PRR parties are scarce and limited in scope. Partly because of limited data availability, existing analyses overlook possible constellations of attitudes and PRR appeal in (one to) three significant ways. First, existing studies often focus on the actual vote and thus exclude a large block of voters that seriously contemplate but do not end up voting for PRR parties. Second, most studies focused on gender & sexuality in electoral participation often only include items on homosexuality or the position of women. More topical and detailed issues like trans rights and gender non-binarity, on which some anti-gender PRR politicians rally, have not been included. Third, studies that do have access to (some of these) data on gender & sexuality related topics often fail to compare this data with other issues often deemed relevant to PRR parties, and to what extent citizens hold populist attitudes in particular. In this contribution, we engage these three issues by taking a theory-informed bottom-up approach to PRR voter profiles in terms of citizens nativist attitudes, populist attitudes, and gender & sexuality attitudes. In other words, we answer the question: Which different voter profiles exist among citizens who are likely to vote PRR in terms of how they combine different aspects of nativism, populism, and gender & sexuality attitudes? Our study is based on a unique large survey study (Dutch Parliamentary Election Study 2021) that includes novel data regarding attitudes towards sexual equality, trans issues, and non-binarity as well as attitudes regarding nativism, authoritarianism, and populism. Moreover, the data include the self-reported likelihood to ever vote for all three different PRR parties in the Netherlands (Partij voor de Vrijheid, Forum voor Democratie, and Juiste Antwoord 21), based on which we can identify all potential PRR voters. The Dutch case is particularly interesting as these three parties take rather similar stances with regard to non-binarity but not to homosexuality. Fitting the goal or our study, the data are analyzed applying latent class analysis (LCA) on over 800 PRR-minded Dutch citizens. These LCA analyses are grounded in a thick knowledge of the PRR discourse on gender and sexuality. Altogether our data and approach push empirical and methodological boundaries in order to shed more light on how sexuality and gender identity attitudes matter for the substantive electoral participation of the potential PRR electorate.