Lodge and Taber claim that likeability heuristics influence political evaluations. We shed new light on this theory by examining whether (dis)liking the governing parties correlates with democratic (dis)satisfaction. We run hierarchical linear models with data from Modules 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. We show that individuals who like the governing parties are more satisfied with democracy, even when controlling for winner/loser status and ideological congruence . We also show that political sophistication strengthens the correlation between (dis)liking the governing parties and (dis)satisfaction with democracy. This study provides new insights into the connection between likeability heuristics and political evaluations.
Feitosa et al. (2026) studied this question.