On the Subjectivity of the Experience of Victory: Who Are the Election Winners?

Abstract

Elections represent key moments in democratic countries, and an established finding from the existing literature is that winners of elections display higher levels of satisfaction with democracy. Yet we know almost nothing about the times when voters feel like winners of an election. Using panel data in four countries, this article finds that while the objective performance of the supported party—measured using vote share and changes in vote share from the previous election—has a very important effect on feeling like an election winner, prior expectations regarding the election’s outcome as well as preferences for the supported party significantly moderate the effect of party performance on voter feelings. It seems also that the identification of the winners and losers of elections are clearer in majoritarian‐style democracies than in proportional systems with coalition governments. Ultimately, the findings indicate that measuring who are the winners of an election using exclusively objective measures of party performance may provide a distorted view of public opinion following the elections.