PERSPECTIVE DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS TRANSFORMATION OF THE LEFT The Myth of Voter Losses to the Radical Right Silja Häusermann, Herbert Kitschelt, Tarik Abou-Chadi, Macarena Ares, Daniel Bischof, Thomas Kurer, Mathilde van Ditmars and Markus Wagner January 2021 Across Western Europe, social democratic parties have on average experienced a decline of their vote share in parlia­men­tary elections of more than 10 percentage points over the past 15 years. A pro­minent thesis in the de­bates about the reasons for these losses is that social demo­cra-­tic parties have lost working class voters to right-wing pop­ulist and radical right parties. In this policy brief, we provide evidence which shows that this interpretation is at odds with the best empirical data we have on vote switching. The policy brief focuses on voter outflows away from social democratic parties. Both past and potential future losses are predominantly to green and left-libertarian parties, followed by main­stream right parties.