Recent electoral events (the Brexit referendum; Trump's victory) have testified a phenomenon that is increasingly relevant in recent elections: the presence of an information gap in the first hours after the end of the scrutiny. As first results start to flow in from specific local areas, uncertainty emerges. This is especially true when results come from areas with a particularly specific political tradition, so that the partial scrutiny is not representative of what might be the final result. This often produces a deep uncertainty, with relevant effects not only on public opinion and politicians' reactions, but also (an perhaps...

Emmanuel Macron’s presidential majority – consisting of his movement La République En Marche (LREM) and centrist party Modem – has largely win the second round of the legislative elections on June 18, although with a smaller margin than predicted after the first round. LREM on its own has obtained the absolute majority in the lower house with 308 seats out of 577. Mainstream parties of the left and the right realized some of the worst electoral performances in parliamentary elections: the Parti Socialiste (PS) hits a record low, with only 30 MPs, and making a parliamentary group of a...

Aldo Paparo, Lorenzo De Sio, Mathilde van Ditmars As seen in the analysis by Emanuele, De Sio and van Ditmars, the survey data we collected on Dutch public opinion includes data on agreement and priority of a series of important policy goals. By looking at those we were able to map the general state of Dutch public opinion and the structure of opportunity on various issue dimensions. However, the data we collected also include information concerning the credibility of each of the different parties. Basically, respondents were asked to indicate all parties that they considered credible to achieve a particular...

  Introduction The Netherlands and the United Kingdom were the first member states to hold European elections on Thursday 23 May 2019 ahead of other European Union (EU) member states which followed on 24 May or later. One may have expected that the Netherlands and the UK would set a ‘Eurosceptic’ cast over the EP elections to be held in the remaining 26 EU member states but this was not the case for the Netherlands. Actually, quite the opposite happened. The big winner was the pro-EU Labour Party (PvdA) which won the largest vote share of 18.9 per cent, up 9.5...

  Introduction 2019 European elections in Croatia were held in a very different political environment than previous EP elections. Economic conditions have improved as GDP growth resumed in 2015, unemployment has declined by more than a half and the government fiscal position has also improved. However, the entry into the EU and expiration of the restrictions on the free movement of labour produced a mass emigration of mostly younger population towards countries of Western Europe. Thus, despite the migrant crisis that affected Croatia in 2015 and 2016, and the constant pressure of migration on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, it...