Analyze. How did USR-PLUS and PSD end up losing over a million voters?

The main political forces in Parliament competed to present their success at the local level: the PNL marched for the political vote, being the first party in terms of number of votes, PSD noted that it has the largest number of mayors, while USR-PLUS He pointed out that he is coming strong after winning several mayoralties (Brasov, Bacau, Timisoara). But an analysis of the votes obtained by these political forces in the last rounds of elections shows that two of the political forces, the USR and the PSD, are in decline.

USR is the party that stands out with the largest decrease in supporters from the 2019 MEPs to the local elections in September. Specifically, the party led by Dan Barna and Dacian Ciolos lost more than 1.2 million votes in just one year. Thus, if in May 2019, in the context of an anti-PSD vote and the repulsion towards Liviu Dragnea, USR-PLUS managed to receive 2,028,236 votes, that is, almost as much as PSD, the situation radically changed in the last local , when the party led by Barna and Cioloş obtained 748,171 votes. Basically, the USR-PLUS, crushed by the constant tensions of recent months, came to collect a number of votes almost similar to that of parliamentarians in 2016, when the first participation in the legislature obtained 621,000 votes. Next, USR-PLUS is a powder keg after household names that stood out through projects in Parliament, such as Florina Presadă, Vlad Alexandrescu or Mihai Goţiu, were put in ineligible places.

The Dragnea factor

The PSD managed to stay in the first position in terms of the number of mayors, that is, 1,362 mayors, with almost 100 mayors more than the PNL, but in recent years it has lost more than 1.3 million voters. Then, in the 2016 parliamentary elections, the PSD was voted by 3.2 million Romanians and had 46% of the elected members of the Legislature, a historic score for the party led then by Liviu Dragnea, in the European Parliament of 2019, the Social Democrats reached 2,040,000 votes. The three years of government in which numerous controversial measures were taken in the field of Justice and in the fiscal field were the reasons for the anti-PSD vote. The Social Democrats not only could not recover from the electorate, despite having been in the Opposition for a year and got rid of politicians like Dragnea or Viorica Dăncilă, but they still lost supporters, the PSD being voted in these localities recently. more than 1.8 million people.

The PNL proves that it is the winner of these places, although it only maintains its traditional pool of 2.3-2.4 million voters. Liberals have recovered from the catastrophic failure of the parliamentarians in 2016, when under the presidency of Alina Gorghiu they only gathered 1.4 million votes and reached only 20% in Parliament, managing to be voted by 2.33 million in these elections . people. NLP also reached 1,232 mayors, 140 more than in 2016.

Băsescu locomotive

The party led by Traian Băsescu is difficult to get out of politics. The PMP manages to maintain an electoral reserve of almost 500,000 voters in the last two elections, with Băsescu being the locomotive of the party of which it claims to have become “the largest small party”.

Unlike the stability of the PMP, Pro Romania fully felt the deviations of the match. The party led by Víctor Ponta obtained 356,030 votes at the national level, in addition to the 11,227 cast in alliance with ALDE in Bucharest. In the 2019 MEPs, Pro Romania had managed to gather 584,000, so with almost 220.00 more votes, but at that time it was based on the votes of the Brăila organization, led by Mihai Tudose, but also Buzău, where some of the Social Democrats they put the stamp on Víctor Ponta. Tudose then garnered 27,500 votes for Pro Romania, with Brăila being the best performing organization. Meanwhile, Tudose returned to PSD and Pro Romania Brăila reached 3,000 votes per county. ALDE, a party led by Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu, is also in collapse, garnering only about 200,000 votes. Since its peak in June 2016, when it had 485,000 votes, ALDE has lost more than half of its supporters.

The UDMR led by Kelemen Hunor is also in decline, which in these places did not exceed 400,000 votes, although in the last parliamentarian and European parliamentarian it had succeeded. However, the UDMR reached 199 mayors, four more than in 2016.