For whom House of Representatives elections are especially important horse racing see: that match is over. The PVV arrived first on November 22, both surprisingly and convincingly. However, after the election battle, attention to the polls has not diminished. And in the most recent seat polls, the PVV is running even further away from its political competitors in a kind of victory lap. Which isn't all that surprising, and hardly newsworthy.
It's strange that so much attention is paid to seat polls right after elections. In the run-up to elections, information from polls is likely to be relevant for voters. After all, strategic voters in particular need an idea of the expected political relationships. What will my fellow voters do and what does that mean for a new coalition – and what will my choice be in that case?
But the question of what people would vote if there were elections 'tomorrow' is currently very hypothetical. House of Representatives elections are not around the corner. The coalition negotiations have only just begun, if they have really begun. And depending on how that process goes – probably difficult, and slow – and ends at some point and how a new government subsequently functions, voters will probably determine or revise their preferences. According to election research by Ipsos on behalf of NOS, more than half of voters only decided what to vote in the last week before the November 22 elections. In previous parliamentary elections, 10 to 15 percent of voters tied the electoral knot on election day itself.
Toy for politicians
Would you like to pause for a moment while probing? No, not that, but I would like to be more thoughtful about polls and their results. As far as we are concerned, this now means less media attention for seat polls. Not only because they currently do not have the aforementioned informative value for voters, but also because seat polls are now mainly a plaything for politicians. If you don't talk to us seriously, we will only get bigger, the PVV can think out loud. Is it not time to resign now that the losses continue, is the pressing question for the political leader of the VVD. But there are now no House of Representatives elections at all – they will not take place until 2024 at the earliest. And even then, the predictive value of seat polls is usually smaller than the previous election result, as we know from research. That is why, as far as we are concerned, the position of seat polls will remain modestly in the background for the time being.
At a time of ongoing coalition negotiations, there is certainly room for polls, but for more substantive and targeted polls. After all, election results provide an extremely limited picture of what voters actually want. On November 22, the Dutch electorate made its decision. But the message of all those red colored dots is difficult to understand. Polls can be illuminating here. Now that the results are known, what are the coalition preferences of voters, and – more specifically – of voters of the various political parties? Various agencies provide insight into this. Coalition formation may not have to proceed seamlessly according to these preferences, but it should not be too much to ask that these preferences are taken into account by negotiators in a democratic system. And as long as the Dutch electoral system is flawed when it comes to answering that specific power question, polls may be able to somewhat remedy this weakness in the democratic structure.
Big issues
Polls, or voter research in general, can not only provide a better picture of the desire for or aversion to certain coalitions, but can also provide politicians with more substantively relevant information. What do voters in general, and their own voters in particular, think about certain major political issues? About tackling the migration problem, about the issue of social security, about environmental issues and the energy transition? Here too, the following applies: in a representative democracy, elected representatives have their own mandate. But why wouldn't they take advantage of additional information from their voters, as available through responsibly designed and presented polls?
Also read
'A poll is not a prediction, but a snapshot'
There is indeed a life for post-election opinion polling. But it is important to estimate polls correctly. At the end of December 2023, that value does not lie so much in the estimate of the number of seats that parties would have if there were elections – those elections were already on November 22, and we know the outcome. Prominent attention to seat polls is not appropriate now. Polls must relate to what matters now: the composition of a new coalition and the content of a coalition agreement. In this way, polls are valuable and we gain much better insight into what voters really want.
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