The rise of the populist right has been extensively studied, yet less attention has been paid to how the delivery of core public services may drive voter support for such parties. Given that public services are often the primary means through which citizens interact with the state, we argue that declining public service performance has the potential to create grievances that reduce support for established political parties while increasing the appeal of anti-establishment populist parties. We examine this empirically in the English context, focusing on one the core aspects of public service provision in England – the publicly-funded National Health Service (NHS). We combine government administrative panel data on local health care facilities closures with fine-grained geo-spatial panel data on public preferences and voting intention. Using a staggered difference-indifferences design and a number of different estimation strategies, we find that closures reduce reported patient satisfaction and increase support for populist right parties. Treatment effect heterogeneity further suggests that increased immigration and registrations of migrants at local practices exacerbate the link between declining public service delivery and propensity to vote for the populist right. Our findings contribute to the literature on the rise of the populist right, demonstrating the role of public service delivery in driving support for populist parties, especially in local areas undergoing rapid demographic change.
