Mapping the 2020 Slovak Parliamentary Election Analysis of Spatial Support and Voter Transition

This contribution is a complex analysis of the geographic voting patterns in the 2020 Slovak parliamentary election using methods such as Geographically Weighted Regression, Hierarchical Regression Models, and Ecological Inference. It is focused on the winner of the 2020 parliamentary election, the populist OLaNO, and on the loser, the traditional left-wing SMER-SD - within the context of electoral support and voter transition in comparison to the 2016 parliamentary election, and in part to the 2019 presidential election. The article contributes to the underdeveloped discourse relating to the spatial support of political parties in Slovakia and finds how the selected socio-economic indicators explain the varying voting patterns. The main finding is that Slovakia is an internally heterogeneous country. The socio-demographic factors have a differentiated (either positive or negative) effect on the electoral support for Slovakian parties. As a result, voting patterns differ not only between the western and eastern parts of the country but also between districts within a common geographic area or region. This reveals the complex set of dividing lines in the country and indicates future trends in Slovakian politics.