Correlation analysis of voting results in the Russian federal and regional elections of 2011–2018

Correlation coefficients between the results of political parties in the 2016 State Duma elections in the Russian Federation as a whole and in 26 regions, as well as in the elections of regional parliaments of 35 subjects of the Russian Federation in 2012–2015 were calculated. For the 2016 State Duma elections, data was used at all levels – regions, single-member electoral districts, TEC and PEC. It is noted that the “United Russia” correlations with all major parties are generally negative. A fairly high level of correlation is observed between the liberal parties. The main focus is on correlations between parliamentary opposition parties and parties with similar names. The correlation coefficients between the results of parties and candidates in the State Duma elections of 2011 and 2016 and the Presidential elections of 2012 and 2018 were also calculated, showing the stability of the geographical distribution of the electorate of the main parties. Regional differences in the nature of correlations between the main political parties are noted. It is assumed that correlations between parties reflect not so much their ideological closeness as the social closeness of their electorate. In this regard, it is noted that a positive correlation between the results of ideologically distant parties (“Yabloko” and the Communist party or “Yabloko” and “Rodina”) is associated with their reliance on the urban electorate and, perhaps, its most educated part. The reasons for voting for spoiler parties and the role of these parties in reducing the results of the main participants in the elections are discussed.