This article examines the impact of Venezuelans' economic assessments on the election of a radical reformer, President Hugo Chávez. Multinomial logit analysis of pre-electoral survey data shows that sociotropic perceptions of recent losses and high hopes for future improvements significantly boosted support for Chávez. When political judgments and issue positions are considered, people's prospective assessments retain their significant effect, whereas negative retrospective evaluations indirectly affect vote intentions for Chávez, namely, via rejection of the established political elite. These findings seem to corroborate claims of economic voting literature but cannot be interpreted in narrowly materialistic terms. Instead, the striking gulf between despair about the past and exalted hopes for the future shows the impact of Chávez's charisma. Rather than reflecting a dispassionate assessment of likely developments, people's expectations of a dramatic turnaround seem driven by the psychological need to believe that current problems must find a solution, which “Americanist” literature has documented.
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