Half of Dutch will vote for same party they did in previous election

Only 54 percent of voters will vote for the same party they voted for in 2017 in the parliamentary election happening two weeks from now. About 20 percent are still dithering about who to vote for. And 23 percent already decided to switch to another party, according to research by the VU University in Amsterdam and Kieskompas, led by political scientist Andre Krouwel, NOS reports.

The PVV and SGP have the most loyal supporters. The VVD also kept a large part of its 2017 voters. 50Plus, FvD, and PvdD lost the most voters, likely due to conflicts and divisions in those parties, the researchers said.

In general, right-wing parties attract more men, while women more often vote left-wing. The D66 attracts the most highly educated voters, closely followed by PvdA and GroenLinks. Populist parties PVV and FvD attract much less educated voters. The researchers identified three "electoral battleflieds" on which the political parties are fighting for voters.

The first and most obvious is the far-right, where the PVV and FvD are battling for voters. The voters for these two parties are more likely to be men than women and on average are less educated. People who will still vote FvD, even after conflict led to an exodus of members, are generally young. While the PVV more often attracts the older generation.

The VVD and CDA are competing for the second large electoral bloc. This group consists predominantly of middle-aged people, slightly more often male, and reasonably highly educated. This bloc of voters are most concerned about economic issues, security, and democratic freedoms.

The third electoral bloc is the left-leaning voters, where especially the PvdA and GroenLinks are competing for votes. These voters attach importance to themes like climate, social security, education, art and culture, and Europe. The voters in this bloc are mainly young, highly educated, and predominantly female. Female voters prefer GroenLinks slightly more often, male voters PvdA.

"It's actually absurd that right-wing politicians are in the media so much, because voters are much more decided on the right than on the left," Krouwel said to the broadcaster. "The doubt among left-wing voters is mainly because they see the left cannot get a majority. That's why they look at who can color the next cabinet slightly to the left, and then the PvdA has a better chance than GroenLinks. The coming weeks are therefore especially crucial for Lilianne Ploumen to prove that she has a chance to be part of a new cabinet."