Beneficial policies can inspire voter gratitude that endures beyond immediate elections.

Context: The 2002 Elbe flooding in Germany created a unique natural disaster scenario to examine policy responses.

We find flood response increased incumbent party vote by 7 percentage points in affected areas during the 2002 election. Notably, 25 percent of this short-term gain persisted into the 2005 election before fading completely by 2009.

This demonstrates that voter gratitude toward beneficial policies can have a longer-lasting effect than previously assumed. The findings offer important implications for understanding democratic accountability mechanisms and evaluating public policy effectiveness.

💡 Key Insights:

• Natural disasters create opportunities to study long-term electoral consequences of crisis responses

• Incumbent parties receive significant credit following disaster-related policy interventions

• Voter gratitude appears durable but eventually fades as memories recede