People vote against migrants not because they're taking jobs, but because they're a useful target for fake news.
April 14, 2026
Original Paper
Electoral Effects of Forced Migration: Evidence from a Developing Country
SSRN · 6569391
The Takeaway
In Brazil, migration pushed voters to the right, but not because of economic competition or unemployment. The shift was driven almost entirely by targeted electoral misinformation, proving that "migration anxiety" is often a product of information warfare rather than economic reality.
From the abstract
We study the electoral effects of Venezuelan forced migration in Brazil and investigate the potential causes of anti-migrant sentiment. Although Venezuelan migration did not affect political participation, our results suggest that larger inflows of Venezuelan migrants led to a recomposition of vote shares from centrist to right-wing political ideologies in both gubernatorial and presidential elections. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first article to explain the political transformatio