Realignment and voter issue preferences in Quebec’s 2018 provincial election: a conjoint experiment

Abstract

In an election, political parties present positions on multiple policy issues. These competing sets of propositions are then evaluated by citizens on election day. Parties present dozens of issues, while voters make one single choice. Hence, it is not straightforward to assess which issues affect the overall result most. Conjoint experiments allow to shed light on the underlying decision process. We identify various policy issues likely to have swayed the vote during the Quebec 2018 election and analyze which party positions citizens prefer, and how it could have benefit or played against parties. We also provide a contextual framework where we inscribe these results within the literature on political realignment and constitutional depolarization. Results indicate that Quebec’s political game is opening up with a mix of short-term discrete policy promises (i.e., electoral reform) and long-term ideological issues (i.e., the environment) having an impact on vote choice.