From ‘Foreign Body’ to PD Leadership and Beyond. Explaining Matteo Renzi’s Path to Power through the Evolution of his Primaries’ Voters

This article examines the path to power of the current Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, by assessing the evolution of his voters’ characteristics between the 2012 and 2013 national primaries. The analysis is based on two extensive data sets the author herself has created together with the other members of the standing group, ‘Candidate and Leader Selection’, working within the Società Italiana di Scienza Politica (Italian Society of Political Science). The socio-demographic and political characteristics of participants in the primaries are described, while the characteristics of Renzi’s voters (RVs) are compared to those of non-Renzi voters (NRVs) and to the averages for the primaries’ participants generally. The findings clearly demonstrate that in the space of only one year RVs changed significantly: in 2012 they perfectly reflect the role of ‘foreign body’ played by their own candidate, who strongly distinguished himself from the primaries’ other candidates by gaining higher-than-average support among young voters and people having a centrist or even a right-wing political background. By contrast, in 2013 RVs become much more similar to the traditional left-wing and aged electorate used to voting in primary elections organised by the Democratic Party (PD) or the centre–left coalition as a whole. The analysis testifies that Renzi faced a kind of ‘normalisation’ in the eyes of the centre-left’s sympathisers, something that was both a cause and an effect of his acceptance by the party elite – an acceptance that allowed him to become PD general secretary first, and Prime Minister immediately thereafter.