Whereas populist citizens are usually described as being driven by individual discontent, this article builds on the notion that they are also spurred by sociotropic concerns. Taking the French Yellow Vests populist movement and its flagship referendum on popular initiative as a case study, we address the mechanism by which discontent is directed into an instrumental orientation, and how this mechanism translates into voting choice. Using a conjoint experiment, we find that a candidate supportive of citizen initiative referendum garners the most support, especially among protesters with strong people-centric attitudes, even when competing with a candidate signaling her ideological proximity by means of an antielite statement. Results therefore enrich extant literature on voter-politician congruency by suggesting that congruency between people-centrism and the prospects of more direct democracy is a way for populist citizens to make their vote choice.