Turkish Conservatives’ Loyalty to Erdoğan and Views on Potential Successors

Source:Center for American Progress Date:11Dec2019

At one level, President Erdoğan continues to enjoy broad, loyal support among AKP voters. By way of rough comparison, in the United States, Republican voters’ approval for President Donald Trump broke down as follows in a recent YouGov survey: 57 percent strongly approve; 27 percent somewhat approve; 8 percent somewhat disapprove; and 5 percent strongly disapprove. By this very rough comparative measure, President Erdoğan’s level of support from his own party is average. At the same time, as a share of the overall population, President Erdoğan has a reasonably small group of dedicated partisan supporters, with roughly one-third of the country loyal in their support of him. As is generally seen in President Erdoğan’s approval ratings, younger and more educated Turks are less loyal to him than their older and less educated counterparts.