Who Votes for chavismo?: Class Voting in Hugo Chávez's Venezuela

The conventional wisdom about contemporary Venezuelan politics is that class voting has become commonplace, with the poor doggedly supporting Hugo Chavez while the rich oppose him. This class voting is considered both a new fea- ture of Venezuelan politics and a puzzle given the multiclass bases of prior populist leaders in Latin America. I clarify the concept of class voting by distinguishing between monotonic and nonmonotonic associations between class and vote choice. Using survey data, I fi nd that only in Chavez's fi rst election in 1998 was class vot- ing monotonic. Since then, class voting in Venezuela has been nonmonotonic, with the very wealthiest Venezuelans disproportionately voting against Chavez. At the same time, Chavez's support appears to have increased most among the middle sec- tors of the income distribution, not the poorest. Finally, I fi nd that whatever effect Chavez may have had on overall turnout, his efforts have not disproportionately mobilized poor voters.