‘We the People’ or ‘We the Peoples’? A Comparison of Support for the Populist Radical Right and Populist Radical Left in the Netherlands

Abstract Research on thesupply side of politicsdemonstrates that populism acts as a common denominator even though populist parties possess very different ideological positions. However, it is uncertain whether this translates to the demand side: Do voters support left and right‐wing populist parties for similar reasons? Using the Netherlands as our case study, we investigate the commondemand sidecharacteristics of supporters of populist radical right and populist radical left parties. The paper concludes that populist attitudes (i.e. a people‐centered notion of political representation) unify supporters of both populist radical left and populist radical right parties. Supporters of both parties also demonstrate lower levels of political trust (than voters for other parties): this is particularly the case forPVVsupporters. Beyond these similarities we find that thePVVand theSPattract very different supporters.PVVsupporters demonstrate low immigrant tolerance, whileSPvoters support more income equality.