Appeals to identity politics play an increasingly prominent role in (perceptions of) representation. For political parties, selecting a balance of demographic backgrounds can be a key recruitment and selection strategy to ensure a competitive candidacy. For politicians, the strategic use of visible identity markers can signal trustworthiness, personal relatability, or perceived policy positions to voters. And for voters, snap judgments about politicians’ individual backgrounds, along with party affiliation, can serve as persuasive heuristics. But how do these factors compare across different systems? Do political parties try to recruit an ‘optimal’ mix of candidate backgrounds that aligns with voter preferences? We exploit the natural institutional variation found in European Parliament elections to explore the link between the candidate nominations, demographic backgrounds, and electoral outcomes. Drawing upon novel observational data on all candidacies to the European Parliament, 2014-2024, we pair candidate background data from electoral lists with voter preferences declared as part of the European Election Studies. We assess the extent to which parties select candidates that provide a descriptive 'fit' with the voters that they represent. Our findings speak to the particular importance of voter perceptions of candidate gender, race, and age for the selection and sorting of candidates.