Populist parties have established themselves across Western Europe, placed liberal democracy under stress, and are the subject of growing interest in research. Nevertheless, two areas have received almost no attention: who rejects rather than supports these parties, and does supporting/rejecting them relate to citizens’ conceptions of democracy? This paper addresses this gap. By relying on a novel public opinion dataset of ten West European countries with a set of indicators for positive and negative partisanship, and various conceptions of democracy, we explore if those who “love” and “hate” populist parties share or differ in how they understand democracy. Findings include that those who like (dislike) populist parties give less (more) importance to liberal democracy and more (less) to direct democracy. Moreover, we reveal that those who reject both populist radical left and populist radical right par-ties tend to share the same understanding of democracy based on liberal and egalitarian values.