Turning red

Russia held elections to 39 regional parliaments last weekend. Here’s how the results played out.

Elections to local parliaments took place in 39 Russian regions last weekend (September 17–19), at the same time as the elections to the State Duma. In a new report, RBC breaks down how the voting results in these regions changed since the last elections in 2016. Though United Russia won the most votes in all 39 regional parliamentary elections, its victory wasn’t as resounding as it was five years ago. By comparison, the Communist Party (KPRF) saw better results at the polls in 34 of the 39 regions. Meduza summarizes the regional election results for each of Russia’s main political parties here.

United Russia was victorious in all of the 39 elections to regional parliaments that took place last weekend. That said, “party of power” didn’t fare as well as it did in 2016. Indeed, it lost a portion of its mandates in 30 of the 39 regions. United Russia suffered the greatest loss in Chukotka, where its results dropped by 16.8 percentage points (though the party still won more than 40 percent of the vote). The ruling party’s results also dropped 16.7 percentage points in Mordovia, and 15.7 percentage points in Chuvashia. There was also a marked decline in support in the Kamchatka, Tver, Novgorod, Leningrad, and Murmansk regions, as well as in Karelia and St. Petersburg.

At the same time, United Russia saw significant improvements in its polling results in the far-eastern Jewish Autonomous Region (up 9.43 percentage points compared to 2016) and the Adygeya Republic in the North Caucasus (up 8.43 percentage points). The ruling party’s results also improved up to 4.5 percentage points in the Astrakhan Region, the Moscow Region, the Altai Krai, the Stavropol Krai, and in the North Caucasian republics of Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia.

By comparison, the Communist Party (KPRF) saw improved results at the polls in 34 of the 39 regions. Support for the KPRF grew the most in the Primorsky Krai (up 10.18 percentage points), as well as in the Sverdlovsk (+9.16 percentage points), Vologda (+9.15 percentage points), Orenburg (+8.52 percentage points), and Leningrad (+8.32 percentage points) regions. However, the Communist Party’s results dropped by 1–6 percentage points in the Omsk Region, Jewish Autonomous Region and Oryol Region, as well as in Chechnya and Dagestan.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) saw diminished results at the polls in 36 of the 39 regions, mainly losing their mandates to candidates from United Russia and the Communist Party.

The New People party, which was created shortly before the State Duma elections (and immediately made it over the parliament’s five-percent threshold), received more than three percent of the votes in 20 of the 39 regions. It was most successful in the elections to the legislative assemblies in the Tomsk region (10.19 percent) and in St. Petersburg (10.11 percent).

The Party of Pensioners didn’t make it into the State Duma, but it secured more than five percent in the elections to ten regional legislatures. Its best results were in the Murmansk and Vologda regions.

The liberal opposition party Yabloko won just 1.34 percent of the votes in the State Duma elections, 0.65 percentage points less than in 2016. In addition, the party performed worse in many of its regional campaigns. Yabloko only saw a slight improvement in its results in Pskov Region (up 0.11 percentage points), where the party branch is headed by Lev Schlosberg.