Who votes for populist presidential candidates? Differential support among US-based Latin American diasporas

Abstract

What explains diaspora support for populist presidential candidates? Existing findings suggest most diaspora voters are less likely to support populist candidates. However, there are notable exceptions among Latin American diasporas. We posit educated diasporas will be less likely to support populist candidates and political socialization in destination countries with successful populists will increase support for populist candidates in origin-country elections. We use origin-country candidate-level election data from 13 Latin American diasporas residing in the United States to test these claims. Our data covers 172 candidates from 45 first-round presidential elections. We connect this voting data to time-variant demographic data from the American Community Survey (ACS) for US respondents born in our thirteen Latin American countries of interest. Our results complicate existing findings as only some diasporas have less support for populist candidates than domestic voters, while others have relatively more support. We find weak origin-country state capacity, manifested by non-reporting of consulate-level election results, explains this variation. Diasporas from weaker states leave earlier in life and are more politically socialized in the destination country, yet likely vote for populists out of a desire to restore order in their country of birth.