An analysis of recent election data In the red regions of Italy

In the sociological and political science literature, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria and Marche shape "the Red Zone" (Trigilia 1981; Baccetti Messina 2009; Caciagli 2017). The Red Zone is a wide area in the center of Italy, where the values of the leftist political culture are so widespread among the people as to inhibit a real electoral competition between left and right parties’ candidates. First, the Communist Party and, then, the left parties, heirs of the communist political culture, have considered this area as a solid fortress, where the victory in the elections is taken for granted. The scholars analyze the electoral data in the Red Regions to investigate the existence and the persistence of a political culture based on Communist values. Its existence is considered true until the ’80 but its persistence over time has been questioned. The studies show that the voting behaviors in the Red Regions are no longer frozen since the ’90: although the post-communist parties continue to receive a good electoral consensus, other political parties are considered by people as valid alternatives. This contributes to making the elections in the Red Regions as an authentic competition. The study reported in this paper gives an updated contribution to this scientific field. The latest study (Ramella 2005) analyze the electoral consensus collected by the leftist parties in the Red Zone, from Post-Second World War elections to the european election in 2004. What happened after 2004? Answering this question is crucial because the italian electoral-political scenario has changed rapidly and considerably since 2005: new political parties, alternatives to traditional parties (i.e. Movimento5Stelle and Lega), are receiving a growing popular consensus, even in the Red Zone. Are the leftist parties losing electoral consensus? Or the persistence of a solid leftist political culture is allowing the leftist parties to keep a significant share of votes? To answer these questions, elections data in Red Heart of Italy are analyzed, from the local election in 2005 up to the most recent european election. These data are downloaded by Eligendo, the database of the italian Interior Ministry. The following data (the number of citizens entitled to vote, the number of voters, the number of blank or invalid votes, the number of votes received by each party, the party's coalition) are analyzed by longitudinal statistic methods. In summary, PD (Democratic Party, the main italian left party) experiences a constant erosion of electoral consensus. The votes lost by PD are not collected by radical left parties; people prefer not to vote. The electoral successes of Movimento5Stelle and Lega accelerates the fall of PD; these two parties penetrate permanently into the Red Regions, offering themselves as valid alternatives to PD and other left parties. After last national and european elections, it makes no more sense to state "the Red Zone" in Italy; the data show that a real electoral competition occurs in these territories.