Regional Inequality, the Winner-Loser Gap and Perceptions of Electoral Fairness in Europe

This paper assesses the extent to which the winner-loser gap with respect to electoral fairness perceptions is conditional on regional wealth. Relying on theories on regional economic inequality, we expect that the gap is greater in poorer compared to richer regions. We test our hypothesis using data from the 2024 European Election Study, considering 17,737 voters from 242 NUTS-2 regions in the European Union. Our results lend support to our hypothesis suggesting that election winners are responsible for regional differences in the winner-loser gap as they tend to be more positive about electoral fairness in the 2024 EP elections when they reside in economically deprived regions compared to wealthy regions. Our findings have important implications for future studies, particularly those interested in the contestation of electoral democracy in Europe.