Caught in the crossfire: electoral spillover effects of accommodating the radical right

Mainstream parties face mounting pressure from radical right challengers. While existing research highlights the electoral costs of accommodating the radical right, we know less about how this decision affects potential coalition partners. When mainstream parties accommodate, this generates spillover effects for potential coalition parties that may be perceived as complicit in legitimising the radical right. We test this mechanism in Germany, exploiting an Unexpected Event during Survey Design: the CDU/CSU’s announcement of tougher migration policy and signaled openness to AfD support. We examine how initial supporters of the CDU/CSU’s potential coalition partners changed their vote intentions in response. We find that the event increased switching from the SPD to The Left by approximately three percentage points, with a similarly directed but statistically insignificant effect for the Greens. These results demonstrate that accommodating the radical right affects not only the accommodating party itself, but the broader coalition landscape in multi-party democracies.