A key finding of the literature on satisfaction with democracy (SWD) is that those who voted for a winning party, that is, a party which becomes part of the government which forms after the election, are more satisfied than those who voted for a losing party. However, this finding is almost entirely based on single-wave post-election surveys, which only capture levels of SWD. Since the hypothesised causal mechanism is the benefits obtained by someone from voting for a winning party implies a comparison with that same person voting for a losing party, the relevant measure is changes between the pre- and post-election period.
Drawing on high-quality multi-wave panel surveys from five elections in Austria, the Netherlands, and Germany, we show that analysing only levels of SWD rather than changes significantly and substantially over-estimates the effect on SWD of voting for a winning party. The results suggest that a key finding of the political science literature may be overstated.