The Present Balance of Left and Right

With half of the world’s population eligible to cast their vote in 2024, the next 12 months has been dubbed a ‘super-election year’. The following chart uses data from Statista’s Consumer Insights to capture a sense of the current status quo in several major economies around the world. While it is an extreme simplification to place entire countries into the boxes of ‘left’ and ‘right’ - hiding regional disparities with these figures as well as individuals’ differing opinions on specific policies and issues - this chart does highlight a number of interesting patterns.

Firstly, in several of the countries, the largest group of people self-identify as holding center-leaning positions. For example, in the United Kingdom, 37 percent of respondents said that they were center-leaning, versus 27 percent right and 23 percent left.

According to this data, Brazil, the United States and France had the highest share of people saying that they hold right-wing views, at 37 percent, 35 percent and 27 percent, respectively. Yet, Brazil also has the highest share of people with left-wing views. This suggests that the South American country has a particularly strong divide, with the smallest share of people standing in the center position, while a higher share pick either the left or right camps.

Currently, the balance across these countries seems to tip towards the right, with only Germany recording a higher share of left-leaning voters than right, albeit barely. It is important to note here that asking respondents about their standing on the political spectrum is not the same as asking which party or candidate they would vote for.

The question asked to survey respondents was: “Many people use the terms 'left' and 'right' when they want to describe political views. Where would you place yourself on a scale from left to right?” This was a 10-point scale single-pick question. At least 9,000 respondents were questioned per polled country.