After falling in love with right-wing heavyweights Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini at previous elections, the voters of Northern Italy now want to give Giorgia Meloni a chance.

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party is leading the polls nationally ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary election and is set to come out on top even in Italy’s Northern industrial heartland.

According to recent polling, the Brothers are now on course to win the most votes in the wealthy regions of Lombardy, Veneto and Piedmont. The trend represents a transformation for Meloni's party, given that these regions used to be the strongholds of Salvini’s League and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.

The question is why voters in these areas are now turning to her to deliver what promises to be a radical change in direction for Italy at a critical time for the country's economy and the security of Europe.

“It’s a well-reflected decision, not based on instinct nor ideology: this time I will vote with conviction for Giorgia Meloni,” said Ettore Boffelli, who owns and manages a button factory in Chiuduno, a small village in the industrious province of Bergamo, Lombardy.

Boffelli's business is typical of the small and medium-sized enterprises which have made Lombardy one the richest regions of the EU, as well as Italy's top exporter. Firms like his are now facing intense pressure from foreign competitors and soaring energy costs. After trying traditional right-wing parties, their owners are turning to Meloni.

Boffelli believes that only the Brothers can help small businesses to become more competitive internationally, notably by cutting taxes and red tape. Over 90 percent of Boffelli’s resin buttons are exported out of Italy. “Dealing with foreign competition is our job,” as he proudly put it.

Other small-scale entrepreneurs around Bergamo share Boffelli's hopes. Alberto Colleoni, who co-manages a family upholstery business, will choose Meloni, after voting for Salvini and Berlusconi at previous elections. “It’s not the best choice, but I hope it will be the least worst,” he said, explaining that Meloni’s promised tax plans “would make his job much easier.”

In her program, Meloni notably proposed a 15 percent tax rate to be applied to all taxpayers for any increase in income compared with the previous three years as well as the progressive withdrawal of a regional tax on productive activities. Meloni’s right-wing allies are also proposing tax cuts, as is her center-left rival Enrico Letta.

The fact that the Brothers of Italy now dominate voting in the North is no surprise to Giulio Tremonti, who served four times as Economy and Finance minister under Berlusconi and is now running with Meloni.

“It has been and it still is center right. What changes is not the orientation of the vote, but the different composition of the coalition,” he told POLITICO, adding that the preference of what he calls “homo economicus” for center-right parties has only increased with the current economic crisis.

Betting on the favorite

In the 2018 national elections Brothers of Italy was the junior partner of the center-right coalition. But after four years on the opposition benches, Meloni’s party is now the coalition’s leader — a circumstance that, in return, pushes some hesitant right-wing voters to prefer Meloni over Berlusconi and Salvini.

“Many center-right voters opt for the main party of the coalition. There is a sort of emulation effect, a tendency to support the leader that is already proving to be stronger,” noted Lorenzo Pregliasco of polling agency You Trend, who also expects Meloni to score better than Salvini, including in the North.

Establishing itself in the strongholds of Forza Italia and League “took a long time,” said Giuliano Verdi, who co-chaired Bergamo’s Brothers of Italy party section for almost a decade. Meloni’s party was rewarded for being the only one to refuse alliances with the center-left Democratic Party and the anti-establishment 5Star movement unlike all the other parties which joined Draghi’s coalition government, argued Verdi.

But some entrepreneurs — a minority according to polls — regret the end of the Draghi era and could vote for the center-left Democratic Party or for the so-called centrist “third pole,” led by former prime minister Matteo Renzi and MEP Carlo Calenda.

For Matteo Brignoli, the co-owner of a business producing luxury fabrics in Bergamo's textile district, Draghi’s government was a “dream team.” Brignoli exports 95 percent of his production. “We liked Draghi’s method, which is a manager’s approach,” he said. The fall of the Draghi executive “was a shock”, and he will vote for the centrist “third pole,” which has promised to bring back Draghi’s agenda.

Brignoli is facing a difficult period because of high energy prices — his dyeing machines are heated with gas — but his business is also hit by an increase in prices of chemicals such as caustic soda. Increasingly, he fears competition from commercial rivals in Portugal, who pay far less for electricity and gas.

“What is Meloni’s background? She is not close to the business world,” he said.