No vote for recovery? Local electoral effects of NextGeneration European Union funds in Spain

Do European Union (EU) funds affect voting behavior in local elections? Following the COVID-19 crisis, the EU launched an unprecedented financial effort through the NextGeneration EU program, channeling billions of euros to support reforms and investments across different policy areas in all Member States. Using several empirical designs, including an observational, a Regression Discontinuity Design and a Difference-in-Difference strategy, this article investigates whether these investments influenced electoral outcomes in Spain’s 2023 municipal elections. Despite the scale and policy relevance of the program and the opportunity to claim credit by mayors, we find no evidence that local allocations of recovery funds increased support for incumbent parties. These null results contrast with earlier works from other European funding programs, which have often yielded electoral rewards under favorable conditions, such as high visibility, political alignment, or clear attribution. In Spain, however, the political impact of NextGeneration EU spending appears to be absent, possibly due to the low visibility of projects, the complexity of fund administration, or the lack of clear political ownership. Our findings highlight the limits of top-down economic interventions in generating local political returns and call for a closer examination of the conditions under which supranational spending shapes electoral behavior.