Right Migrants: How Far-Right Parties attract Immigrant Voters

Populist radical right parties (PRRPs) are widely characterized as staunchly nativist and uniformly anti-immigrant in rhetoric and policy, yet existing classifications assume minimal variation in how these parties discuss immigration. Rather than treating PRRP immigration rhetoric as monolithic, this paper argues that PRRPs vary significantly in their portrayal of immigrants---strategically disaggregating immigration groups through rhetoric to appeal to distinct voter constituencies, including those with immigrant backgrounds. Using a novel dataset of sixty-four hand-coded party manifestos from PRRP and centre-right parties (2002–2019), the analysis shows that parties routinely distinguish between distinct kinds (e.g., ethnic or regional origins, religious backgrounds) and types (e.g., regularity, refugee status) of immigration within official party documents. To assess the electoral consequences of this variation, party-level manifest data are combined with individual-level European Social Survey data and a conjoint experiment administered to first- and second-generation immigrant voters in Germany. The findings add to our understanding of how PRRPs discuss immigration in official party documents and how they can expand their electorate among unexpected populations in Western Europe.