Abstract
In early 2004, it looked as if the political Right in Spain, the Popular Party (Partido Popular, PP), was poised to win national reelection, with public opinion polls showing a six-point margin over the Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party (PSOE). Prime Minister José María Aznar, leader of the PP, was in part popular with voters because he cracked down on ETA and banned its political party wing, Batasuna. Everything changed 3 days before the election on March 11 when the country was turned on its head by the largest terrorist attack on Spanish soil, the Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people and wounded 1,800. Public opinion, influenced by the attack, quickly turned as the Spanish public rallied behind PSOE leader, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who had run on a platform to remove Spanish troops from Iraq. While Prime Minister Aznar originally blamed the attack on ETA, it actually had been the work of Al Qaeda affiliates who stated they targeted Spain because of its involvement in the Iraq War. The Spanish public, already in favor of troop removal, threw support behind the candidate who had promised to remove Spanish troops from Iraq if elected. The Socialists handily won the election with a five-point win over the PP, marking an 11-point swing in 3 days.
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Poloni-Staudinger, L., Ortbals, C.D. (2013). Terrorism and the Public: Gender, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior. In: Terrorism and Violent Conflict. SpringerBriefs in Political Science, vol 8. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5641-4_6
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