Why do citizens in electoral autocracies vote for 'the opposition'? Previous efforts to understand the causes and effects of electoral institutions under authoritarian rule have largely ignored the social origins of opposition candidates, political parties, and factions. This neglect is surprising, given how central opposition cohesion is for processes of democratization and liberalization. I develop a theory of opposition electoral success grounded in the choice of electoral institutions, the coalitional capacity of opposition elites, and the political behavior of voters. How do mechanisms of socialization rooted in historic patterns of voter behavior affect contemporary political attitudes and voter behavior? What factors lead to an increase in support for the ‘opposition’ across time and space in electoral autocracies? This paper explores these questions in Kuwait, using a novel dataset of district- and neighborhood-level election returns from 1963 to the present. I supplement this data with interview material collected from current and former Members of Parliament and candidates.