A recent paper by M. Scharrer, C. Gahn, J. Bernhard-Harrer, M.Stecker, and J. Partheymüller provides a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics that shaped the 2024 electoral campaign, election, and government formation.

Background

The previous election on 29 September 2019 was triggered and significantly shaped by the so-called “Ibiza affair”, in which a secretly recorded video of FPÖ leader Strache had shown his openness to corruption. Consequently, the FPÖ lost more than a third of their voters (falling to 16.2%), while their former coalition partner - the ÖVP led by Sebastian Kurz recorded the biggest gains, increasing their share by almost 6% (to 37.5%). Surprisingly, they formed a coalition with the second election winner: the Green party (13.9%).

The new government proved to be a surprisingly strong partnership throughout their election term: Despite having to deal with multiple crises - the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resignation of chancellor Kurz due to ongoing investigations against him - the coalition remained stable.

The campaign

Despite the preceding crises the 2024 election campaign was in many ways conventional. To understand the campaign's dynamics, Scharrer et al. analyse voter priorities, party communication, and media reporting in parallel. They find that - similarly to the 2017 election - the most salient issue was “Asylum and Migration, which was named by 43.1% of voters and featured in 15.6% of media reporting. In political communication around the issue, the FPÖ was the strongest driver, while the ÖVP interestingly did not demonstrate significant attention with only 5.8% of their press releases focusing on the issue.

Next to “Asylum and Migration”, “Security and Crime” was an important issue, named by more than a fifth of voters and receiving moderate media attention. Interestingly, the focus of voters and elites diverged on a multitude of issues: For social policy issues like “Inflation”, “Health and Care”, “Pension and Retirement Security” and “Housing” voter interest was significantly higher than party and media attention.

The opposite was the case for the topic of “Economic policy”, which was overly present in the media and party press statements, despite comparatively low voter interest. The party communication on the issue was divided along traditional lines with governing parties downplaying the fiscal burden of inflation, costly relief measures and growing recession, while opposition parties emphasized these concerns. Finally, a severe flooding event in the weeks preceding the election day drew significant voter and media attention to the issue of “Climate Change and Environmental Protection”. 

The results

The 2024 election was defined mainly by one result: the FPÖ became the largest party in the National Council for the first time in the party’s history with 28.8% of the vote. However, the authors explain that the 12.7 gained percentage points (since 2019) were primarily a rebound from the losses caused by the Ibiza affair. The former government parties ÖVP (26.3%) and the Greens (8.2%) both suffered big losses and even opposition party SPÖ was unable to benefit, instead repeating their previous election result. Next to the FPÖ, the NEOS managed to record a gain of 1%, making them the second election winner.

In their analysis of demographic voting dynamics, Scharrer et al. find significant cleavages. Firstly, age was an important factor, with older people voting more and favouring the traditional parties (ÖVP and SPÖ). Secondly, voting preference was shaped by education. While university graduates preferred the NEOS and Greens, those with vocational training generally preferred the FPÖ and those with little education were most likely to abstain. Regarding occupation, the authors found that manual workers and students abstained more often while pensioners were more likely to show up to the polls. Interestingly, the SPÖ gained relatively low support from manual workers, who used to form a significant part of their voter base. Further, faultlines were found along religious affiliation and urban-rural divisions with the FPÖ performing best among non-practicing Catholics, and in rural areas, while SPÖ, Greens and NEOS were favoured in urban areas.

Lastly, the FPÖ gained higher vote shares in areas with lower vaccination rates. This correlation has often been interpreted as a causal relationship, where low satisfaction with COVID-19 crisis management leads to FPÖ support. However, Scharrer et al. argue that other dynamics might be at play. On the one hand, the correlation could be caused by common underlying factors such as low political trust. On the other hand they suggest a reverse causal relation: support for the FPÖ may cause vaccine scepticism. To test the hypothesis that the COVID-19 pandemic increased FPÖ support, the authors ran a first-difference panel regression, which finds only limited pandemic-driven amplification of FPÖ gains.

The government formation

What followed the 2024 election was the longest and most complex government formation process in Austrian history. Because both SPÖ and ÖVP ruled out coalitions with the FPÖ before the elections and a “grand coalition” between the two parties would have not reached a working majority, a three party coalition was the only feasible option. Hence, the two traditional parties invited the NEOS to join negotiations, who joined but exited again on 3 January 2025 due to irreconcilable differences. After negotiations between SPÖ and ÖVP broke down as well, ÖVP leader Karl Nehammer stepped down and was replaced by Christian Stocker. Since Stocker indicated openness to work with the FPÖ, the two parties began negotiations, which broke down again on 12 February. Surprisingly, SPÖ, ÖVP, and NEOS took up their negotiations again two days later and managed to form the first three party coalition since 1947 on 27 February - 155 days after the election. The new government achieved high satisfaction among voters of the three government parties, and even among Green-party voters, leaving only supporters of the FPÖ unsatisfied.

Conclusion

As the authors explain, the 2024 election simultaneously reflected continuity and transformation. After a legislative term marked by crises, the election campaign was surprisingly relatively conventional with traditional patterns of issue ownership, e.g. the FPÖ’s focus on “Asylum and Migration”, and familiar government-opposition dynamics, e.g. the opposition emphasizing economic issues. While the FPÖ was the largest party for the first time in its history, the authors understand this success not as caused by the preceding crises but rather as a long-term realignment. Finally, they argue that both the record-long negotiation period and the resulting three-party coalition signify deepening divisions as well as the need for increased political adaptability in a consensus-oriented system. (16.02.2026, Hannah Segers)