TVK makes inroads into AIADMK’s core voter base in Tamil Nadu | Data

The Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), which sprung a surprise in the 2026 Assembly elections, has not only altered the bipolar nature of Tamil Nadu’s politics for the first time since 1977, but has also raised questions over the future of the two Dravidian majors — the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).

However, analysis of region-wise variations in the vote shares secured by the TVK, the DMK and the AIADMK in the 134 constituencies they directly faced each other showed that the electoral outcome has become an existential threat for the AIADMK, which seems to have lost its core vote bank to the TVK. In contrast, the DMK has largely retained its core vote bank.

In three of the five regions — Greater Chennai, central and south — the vote share secured by the AIADMK in the seats it contested is the lowest in 2026. For the DMK, the vote share secured in 2026 was its lowest ever only in the Greater Chennai region.

A closer analysis also showed that there was a strong negative correlation between the vote shares secured by the AIADMK and the TVK in almost all of these 134 constituencies.

The higher negative values (closer to -1) between the TVK and the AIADMK mean that wherever the AIADMK’s vote shares dropped, the TVK’s vote shares went up, and wherever the AIADMK performed relatively better, the TVK couldn’t perform well. The overall value being closer to zero between the DMK and the TVK means that such a correlation was absent between the vote shares secured by the two parties.

The correlation between the AIADMK and the TVK was more pronounced and easily discernible in the Central and South regions, as shown in the graphs below.

This negative correlation between the AIADMK and the TVK was robust across all regions, except the West, which had been a stronghold of the former in the past few decades.

In comparison, such a correlation was not observed between the TVK and the DMK, except in the Greater Chennai region where the TVK swept the polls by hurting both the Dravidian parties. In fact, in the north, central and west regions, both the DMK and the TVK had a positive correlation, which means wherever the TVK had good vote shares or lower ones, the DMK had the same as well.

Curiously, if the AIADMK had lost a chunk of structural or core support to the TVK, then the DMK should have emerged victorious overall, thanks to the split in the anti-incumbency votes. But that did not happen. The reason is visible in another set of data: the change in vote shares since 2021. The table below shows the swing in those same 134 seats.

In most regions, the DMK lost a higher share of votes than the AIADMK — except in the west and the south. And overall, across these 134 seats, the DMK’s vote share dropped by 13.9 percentage points against the AIADMK’s 12.0.

This seeming contradiction where the AIADMK is hitting its lowest floors while the DMK is witnessing a larger overall swing compared to 2021, is best explained by the kinds of voters each party lost. The DMK shed a bigger pool of floating/swing voters to the TVK, either due to anti-incumbency or a clear preference for a new film-star-led party that promised change. These losses were broadly uniform across constituencies, which is why they show up as a large swing but do not correlate with the TVK’s seat-by-seat strength. The AIADMK lost a smaller share of votes overall because it had a lower vote share than the DMK to begin with in 2021. But a larger fraction of what it lost was core support.

In a party system, where the AIADMK’s political identity rests on it being the anti-DMK pole, the TVK’s inroads into the “Two leaves” base poses a serious threat to the party founded by former Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran.

Only 134 constituencies in which the DMK, the AIADMK and the TVK directly contested against each other in 2026 were considered so that patterns measure transfers between these parties alone and controls for coalition effect