The electoral personalization of Italian mayors. A study of 25 years of direct election

This paper presents an analysis of the personalization of the vote in Italian municipal elections in the period 1993–2017. Considering the ability of mayoral candidates to attract more votes than those of the lists that support them, the paper outlines the socio-demographic and political characteristics of the candidates who receive the most personalized votes. Contrary to what one might expect, the most personalized candidates are the losing candidates, not the winning ones. At the same time, the candidates who present themselves as outsiders are more personalized: women; candidates at the head of civic lists; those who lead coalitions positioned at the extremes of the left/right axis; candidates supported by one or two lists. Thus, the paper shows the propensity of the Italian electorate to use the split vote to reward those candidates who present themselves as challengers, rather than the established ones, also in the more pragmatic context of local government elections. Moreover, while it is true that personalization is increasingly more important in the political and electoral context, the ability to create lists of candidates for municipal elections capable of obtaining the broad support of voters seems to count as much, if not more.