Populist policymakers

Populist far-right politicians are increasingly successful across the globe. However, we know little about the personal characteristics of rank-and-file far-right politicians and what part of their success is due to these characteristics. We use hand-collected data on more than 41,000 political candidates for local council elections in the German state of Saxony to study the characteristics and electoral outcomes of Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) politicians. We find that AfD candidates are new entrants to local politics rather than turncoats from other parties. AfD candidates also differ in observable characteristics from candidates of more established parties. However, "characteristics space" demand estimations show that AfD candidates' electoral success is due to voters' strong preference for the AfD "party brand". In fact, voters evaluate (the observed traits of) AfD candidates more negatively than most other parties' candidates. We decompose the party brand effect into distinct policy dimensions and identify the AfD's stance on refugees and gender issues as particularly salient to voters.