The Left is facing a real problem, which can no longer be deemed as a temporary setback. Over the last decade, left-wing parties have declined in the polls which resulted in a sweeping losing streak in elections held in most of Western countries. An analysis of the results highlights three common factors: the Left’s failure, the rise of conservative ideals and the consolidation of right-wing parties’ victories.
This political and social phenomenon is part of a bigger historical period where the relation between the Left and the Right works like a balance scale: while the left pan goes down, the right one rises.
Where, when and how the Left has failed?
It began in Hungary, where Viktor Orban and his far right party “Fidesz” have ruled since 2010, moving towards an illiberal democracy- as Orban himself declared – where the Left has virtually disappeared. According to recent Politico’s polling, the Hungarian Socialist Party, which governed between 2002 and 2010, collapsed to around 1% support in the wake of a political scandal concerning the lies told during the electoral campaign about the country’s economic situation while they were in office. Moreover, leading the polls and threatening Fidesz’ decade-long consolidation for the next April elections, is Tisza, which is, anyway, a conservative party.
This political trend has become more and more widespread in the last 5 years. In 2022 the far-right Italian party, “Fratelli d’Italia” (Brothers of Italy) won the general elections, overwhelming the main left-wing alternatives. In 8 years, citizens’ support for left-wing parties, such as the Democratic Party – that in 2014 was the strongest group with 41% of support – and “Movimento 5 stelle” ( Five stars movement) – that has been in charge from 2018 to 2022 – dropped by half and never really recovered. The same happened afterwards in Austria in 2024 – where the Social Democratic Party registered a nine-points loss compared to 2022- as well as in the Polish presidential elections and federal elections in Germany in 2025. In this case, the top spot of the polls is currently contested between CDU/CSU, center-right party that won with 29% of the votes, and the far-right party “Alternative fur Deutschland” (or Afd), whose support has had an exponential growth, from 2% in 2014 to 25% in 2026. Meanwhile, SPD, the country’s main left-wing party, has been outclassed after having ruled in the previous government.
The rise of the Right has recently reached other European countries that are witnessing the Left’s fall, even when it is in office. In France, the UK, Spain and, lately, Portugal, extreme right candidates – respectively from the “Rassemblement National” “Reform UK”, “ Vox” and “Chega!”- are gaining a broad support, standing out as the principal alternative to current center-left governments.
Furthermore, this phenomenon has crossed the ocean and has been amplified by Democrats’ defeat in the 2016 and 2024 Presidential elections in the United States in favor of Donald Trump and his conservative policies.
So, here is the main question: what is wrong with the Left? What happened in the last decade that has weakened Western left-wing parties?
The answer is simple. The Left has abandoned its historical core voters, those who at the beginning of the 20th century gathered in the factories and the same ones that, at the end of the 60s, marched through the streets asking for dignity and rights. In a few words: the middle/working class. Nowadays, middle class members, feeling betrayed by the Left, have progressively shifted to the right. This change isn’t necessarily linked to an affinity with conservative ideology, but rather to the fact that right-wing parties have become the new representatives of workers’ needs.
As a matter of fact, all the parties we mentioned above share the same electoral base: less educated men and women between 40 and 65 years old, with low-to-middle income, coming from the suburbs or rural areas.
Why is the middle class leaning to the right?
Three main factors explain the middle class’ support for right-wing parties.
Firstly, the promise for a better future through a return to the past – portrayed as a more thriving era where everything was cheaper, safer and easier – appears more reliable and convincing than the left-wing progressive approach, whose political proposals look to the future, which -unlike to the past- is still uncertain and therefore frightening. The Right does not foster a radical change; rather it wants to preserve the status quo or take it back in time.
Secondly, recent left governments have fallen amid political instability and corruption, which has further undermined their credibility. For instance,the Italian Democratic Party changed 3 different governments in five years, which corresponds to the expected duration of a single legislative term. In Portugal the “Tutti frutti” corruption scandal involving members of the Socialist party that broke out in May 2023, has resulted in a sharp decline in the polls.
Thirdly, there is a wide gap between left-wing parties’ political priorities and electoral demands. A report from the American Democratic Party called “Deciding to Win”, drawn up one year after the 2024 presidential elections, shows that the party’s focus issues are at odds with voters’ real needs. In fact, at the top of the list of what voters want democratic candidates to give prominence to, are social security and medicare, lowering everyday costs, creating jobs and economic growth and cutting taxes on the middle class . Just a minority of them underline the promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion, the fight against climate change, while the protection of LGBTQ+ Americans or undocumented immigrants’ rights are the less mentioned issues.
The same scenario applies to the European Union where, according to the European Parliament, “rising prices and the cost of living (42%) and the economic situation (41%) were the main topics that motivated European citizens to vote in the last European elections in June 2024”. In fact, the only parties that have increased their presence in the Parliament come from the right or far-right branch. On the top of the list is “Patriots for Europe”, a right-wing party whose seats increased by 35%, followed by the conservatives of the “European People’s Party” (12%) – the largest party in the European Parliament – and “Conservatives and Reformists” (9%). If we look on the left, things have worsened. The only left-wing party that gained more support is “The Left” with a growth of 9%, but, as mentioned, it is an isolated case: the major center-left party, “Socialists and Democrats” decreased its influence by 3% and Greens were weakened by an 18% loss.
The Left’s mistake
The origin of this negative trend can be found in the UK, when Tony Blair, member of the Labour Party, was the Prime Minister. Following the URSS’ collapse and the extinction of real ideological, political and economic competitors to capitalism, he developed a new strategy for the Western Left, halfway between neoliberalism and social democracy. According to his theory, the Left should neither cling to communism and socialism nor foster an unbridled form of capitalism, but instead embrace another path, “the Third Way” , conceived as an alignment with liberal globalization combined with a distinctive enhancement of social justice.
Nowadays it seems like most Western left-wing parties embarked on the path suggested by Tony Blair. However, this choice has led them to focus on minorities’ rights rather than the middle class’ needs, which have been discarded like an unripe fruit that the Right has grasped and made flourish