Data on autocratizing incumbent reelection rates around the world

When a sitting leader (or governing party) chips away at democracy — weakening courts, muzzling the press, tilting the rules — and then runs to stay in power, do voters throw them out? This page lets you explore the elections behind that question. We gathered 105 such elections across 63 countries between 1995 and 2024, and recorded who ran, how the vote turned out, and whether the leader was returned to office or defeated.

“Democracies” and “autocracies” follow a standard classification of how free and fair a country’s elections were at the time. Leaders were more than twice as likely to be voted out where elections were still meaningfully competitive.

Where these elections happened

Each shaded country had at least one election in the data. Darker shading means more elections. Hover over a country to see the years and how many leaders were re-elected or defeated.

Browse the elections

Every row is one election in which a leader who had been weakening democracy ran to stay in power. Use the menus to filter, type a country name to search, or click a column heading to sort. Click any row marked with ⓘ to see the candidates, their vote shares, and the electoral system.