Billed as “the year of democracy,” 2024 may ultimately be remembered as the year voters sent incumbents packing.
The largest-ever single year of elections was also the worst-ever year for those in office. Every governing party facing election in a developed country this year lost vote share – the first time this has happened since records began – according to an analysis by the Financial Times.
Incumbency advantage used to be an iron law of politics. Recently, “better the devil you know” has given way to “throw the rascals out.” Voters’ instincts have been to twist, not stick. In the United States, Kamala Harris appeared to pay a price for her unwillingness to distance herself from incumbent President Joe Biden’s policies, to Donald Trump’s gain.
What might 2025 bring for incumbents and what factors are at play?
For decades in wealthy democracies, the surest way to win office was already to hold it. Incumbents were a protected class. Power would switch hands between a small number of mainstream parties, mostly after long periods of relative stability.
In emerging, poorer democracies, things were more volatile. Mainstream parties were weaker, facing constant challenges from upstart insurgents, so power changed hands more often.
But this distinction between richer and poorer democracies has blurred. Wealthy democracies have become more volatile, said Ben Ansell, a professor of comparative democratic institutions at the University of Oxford.
It’s the inflation, stupid
Why was 2024 so difficult for incumbents? Post-mortems have found a common cause of death: inflation.
Prices jumped in many countries after the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Driven by a range of factors, including supply disruptions and a rebound in demand, global inflation reached its highest level since the 1990s in 2022. Voters hated it. Even if most of the causes were global, the governments that presided over soaring costs ultimately paid the price.
Perhaps governments had forgotten just how much voters detest inflation. During and after the last big global shock, the 2008 financial crisis, inflation remained relatively low, despite years of huge government stimulus.
Although unemployment soared in the United States and Europe after 2008, inflation was largely stable. The economic pain was more intense for some but was less diffuse. “Inflation hurts everybody less than unemployment, but it’s so widespread,” said Ansell. As the economist Isabella Weber recalled in the New York Times: “Unemployment weakens governments. Inflation kills them.”
Perhaps lessons can be learned from Mexico, which elected Claudia Sheinbaum from the governing Morena party, a rare bright spot for incumbents in Latin America amid a long run of defeats. To stem inflation, her party introduced price controls to cap the price of basic groceries in 2022 and renewed the measure last month.
Although mainstream economists are uneasy about price controls, Weber, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, points out Western countries have already implemented a global price cap on Russian oil. In the face of overlapping crises, perhaps this taboo will crumble.
If inflation really was the culprit, this may be good news for tomorrow’s incumbents. Once prices stabilize, wages catch up and voters get used to the new cost of eggs, those in office – barring more price shocks – ought to have an easier time in the years to come. At least, that’s the theory.
Shopping around
But it’s not the only theory. The defeat or retreat of incumbents across the globe cannot be explained by materialist factors alone. Cultural, structural forces are also at play, which may be making volatility the rule, not the exception.
This erosion of partisan loyalty has opened the field to new actors who scorn the old rules of the game and chip away at its norms. Vicente Valentim, an assistant professor at the European University Institute in Florence, said this happens at both the policy level, such as the backlash against immigration and gender equality, and the procedural, such as refusing to concede an election or casting doubt on the integrity of a vote.
If supply is changing, so is demand. One explanation for rising volatility is that voters have become more like consumers: hard to satisfy, hungry for gratification, always shopping around.
Perhaps one can map changing voter habits onto changing consumer habits. Rather than going to a small selection of bricks-and-mortar stores to buy a fixed selection of goods, many in wealthy democracies have become used to being brought what they want when they want. Amazon and Netflix spoil their customers with choice; voters might expect democracies to catch up.
Having to “choose between the two stores that have always been on the street” – one left, one right – “seems quite mid-20th century in an early 21st century world that we’re used to in every other way,” said Ansell.
On the horizon
A brief survey of upcoming elections suggests 2025 may be equally hard for incumbents in democracies. After failing to hold his coalition together for a full term, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is almost certain to be ousted in February’s snap election, called after he lost a confidence vote this month.
Canadian voters are also likely to end Justin Trudeau’s near-decade-long premiership. The election must be held on or before October 20, but could be brought forward if his coalition also falls apart.
Opinion polls suggest center-left Trudeau may be replaced by the conservative firebrand Pierre Poilievre. A similar story is expected to play out in Australia, where the Labor Party’s Anthony Albanese faces a fierce challenge from the Liberals’ Peter Dutton.
In Europe, next year’s picture is somewhat skewed, as Kremlin-linked propaganda campaigns seek to boost the chances of candidates friendlier to Moscow. Despite what many in the West see as an impressive first term as president, Moldova’s Maia Sandu won reelection by the thinnest of margins in October. Whether her pro-Western party can keep its majority in parliamentary elections in May is less clear. The Kremlin has officially denied accusations by Moldova that it orchestrated and funded a widespread interference campaign this year.
Romania will also have to decide how to proceed after its top court annulled the first round of its presidential election, which it said was marred by Russian interference. A victory for far-right ultranationalist candidate Calin Georgescu – a virtual unknown before the fall – is still on the cards when a new election is held. Russia has denied interfering in the electoral process.
Things may be different in Latin America. Opinion polls indicate Daniel Noboa is better placed than most incumbents to win a second term when Ecuador votes in February, but blackouts and street violence have bolstered his main challenger, Luisa Gonzalez. And while Xiomara Castro – Honduras’ first female president – may win again in November, observers warn she is showing authoritarian tendencies.
And so, 2025 may look like a slimmed-down version of 2024, with fewer elections but incumbents continuing to struggle.
A charitable reading would say this is no bad thing. If voters are unhappy with their leaders, they should boot them out.
Adam Przeworski, a political scientist, once defined democracy as “a system in which parties lose elections.” (This won’t apply in Belarus next month, however, where Alexander Lukashenko – president since 1994 – will be confident of winning another four-year term. Votes in Belarus are widely seen as neither free nor fair.)
But interminable defeats – like Lukashenko’s interminable victories – should set alarm bells ringing. Elections send signals to governments, said Ansell. “You need to be able to punish people, but you also need to be able to reward them.”
If elections become all stick and no carrot, the process risks descending into sound and fury, to the detriment of both politicians and voters.
