Multi-dimensional economic voting in Spain: The 2008 election

•Economic issues played a significant role in 2008 Spanish election.•The economy is important to Spanish voters in three ways: valence, position and patrimony.•The three dimensions in the Spanish economic vote are relevant despite the importance of ideology.

Economic voting studies remain contentious in Spain. The notion is widely-held that there is no economic vote in that country, due to the pervasive and effacing influences of left-right ideology. Still, a growing number of investigations show a significant impact of economic evaluation on the vote choice in Spanish national elections. At least one possible exception here is the 2008 election, where the question has received no systematic treatment. In this study, we explore the impact of economic voting in that contest. We find, first, the presence of strong economic voting of the valence kind. Second, we find that two hitherto unstudied dimensions of economic voting – position and patrimony – have their own independent effect.