First-Time Voters, Anti-Immigrant Sentiments, and Radical Voting: The 2024 Elections in Belgium

While older voters have had the time to build up a more lasting attachment to their preferred political party, this is not the case for first-time voters, who are more susceptible to be influenced by campaign effects and short-term voting motives. There is a clear concern, therefore, that these voters will be more inclined to cast a vote for radical right challenger parties. A counter argument is that research among adolescents suggests that party identities develop quite early in life, so that even 18 year olds might already have a clear and enduring party preference. We put these opposing expectations to the test, using the results of the 2024 Election Survey in Belgium. As the previous elections were held in 2019, we can safely assume that all respondents under the age of 23 are indeed first-time voters. First, we investigate to what extent they hold the attitudes that are typically related to radical right voting, i.e., anti- immigrant sentiments, political distrust, and the CSES populism scale. An innovate feature of the survey is that we also have an attitudinal scale measuring their belief in the future stability of the social security system. Subsequently, we investigate to what extent these attitudes translate into a vote for the populist radical right party. Our guiding hypothesis is that first- time voters are more strongly dealigned from mainstream political parties, and therefore the effect of these attitudes on voting behaviour should be stronger among this group than among the general population.