Rapprochement of nativist populism and migrantised voters

This editorial introduction frames the special issue around the emerging rapprochement between nativist populism and migrantised voters. While populist radical right parties are conventionally understood through exclusionary nativism and anti-immigration politics, recent developments suggest more ambivalent relations with migrantised, ethnicised and racialised constituencies. The introduction identifies three gaps in existing scholarship: the tendency to model the ‘typical’ populist radical right voter as ethnic-majority, the limited theorisation of minority inclusion within populist radical right ideological flexibility, and the marginalisation of far-right affinities in studies of migrant political participation. Bringing together conceptual, qualitative and quantitative contributions, the special issue examines both supply-side strategies through which populist radical right actors court selected minority groups and demand-side conditions under which migrantised voters may support or negotiate with far-right politics. Collectively, the articles show that minority engagement with nativist populism is neither anomalous nor uniform, but shaped by strategic inclusion, transnational dynamics and electoral realignment.