The populist radical right and its influence on the US presidential elections in 2012, 2016, and 2020

This thesis examines voting behaviour in the United States presidential election between 2012 and 2020, focusing mainly on how the populist radical right influenced the results. It therefore compares the results of the 2012 election, when Mitt Romney, who is considered a traditional Republican, ran for president, with those of the 2016 and 2020 elections, when Donald Trump, a representative of the populist radical right, applied for office. The thesis draws on the concepts of national nostalgia, cleavage theory and describes the characteristics of American nativism. Through a two-level binary logistic regression, influence variables are assessed at the individual and contextual levels, which are taken to be the US states. The results reveal a very important influence of the attitudes to unauthorized migration on support for Donald Trump in particular. It was also found that American society has become significantly radicalised during Trump's presidency. The demographic characteristics of the electorate were projected onto attitudinal questions about immigration, and these in turn conditioned their affection for Donald Trump. Through the models, it was also possible to confirm that his support corresponded to the general support of the populist radical right. Key words: cleavage theory; national..