2010 State Elections in Germany

[minionofmidas]

This is the first time I guess Greens/SPD/Left are above 70% and CDU/FDP lower than 20% ...

Shame it's not a national poll.

[DL]

Berlin state election poll (Forsa, 10/01)

Greens 30%
SPD 26%
CDU 16%
Left 15%
FDP 3%

Possible coalitions:
Greens/SPD
Greens/CDU
Greens/Left

I dunno, is this the first poll where SPD + CDU fail to win a majority?

I have a question. In any coalition government - the leader of the larger coalition partner becomes Premier or Mayor. I was under the impression that Wowereit of the SPD was quite personally popular. I have no idea who the Green leader is in Berlin who would become mayor if they were the biggest party - but I wonder whether at the end of an actual election campaign you might some people flirting with voting Green drifting to the SPD to make them the biggest party so that Wowereit remains mayor?

[minionofmidas]

Renate Künast.

Who probably has more appeal with the kind of floating voters currently congregating on the Greens than with their core votership.
Wowereit is popular, more or less, but also somewhat polarizing (heck - I certainly like him).

[Hans-im-Glück]

When I must decide between Wowereit and Künast; then I vote for the SPD and Wowereit. I like him and he is a very good man. I would bet all my money that the Greens will be not the stongest party in the next election.

[Franzl]

When I must decide between Wowereit and Künast; then I vote for the SPD and Wowereit. I like him and he is a very good man. I would bet all my money that the Greens will be not the stongest party in the next election.

Wowereit is a complete idiot

[Hans-im-Glück]

When I must decide between Wowereit and Künast; then I vote for the SPD and Wowereit. I like him and he is a very good man. I would bet all my money that the Greens will be not the stongest party in the next election.

Wowereit is a complete idiot

A man who voted for Guido isn't competent this to say.

[minionofmidas]

QED.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Granted, it's hearsay, but I heard from people who know people who know Wowereit personally that the guy's a complete asshole. Normally I would shrug it off, but since I heard similar things from different sources, something must be true about it.

This was my share of gossip for today.

[minionofmidas]

Isn't that true of any and every state pm or federal minister? It takes a specific set of skills to get there. A very unpleasant set of skills.

[Franzl]

When I must decide between Wowereit and Künast; then I vote for the SPD and Wowereit. I like him and he is a very good man. I would bet all my money that the Greens will be not the stongest party in the next election.

Wowereit is a complete idiot

A man who voted for Guido isn't competent this to say.

I voted CDU in 2009.....but sure, I'd vote for Guido over Wowereit, even now

[Middle-aged Europe]

Isn't that true of any and every state pm or federal minister? It takes a specific set of skills to get there. A very unpleasant set of skills.

Descriptions of Wowereit sounded exceptionally asshole-ish.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Baden-Württemberg state election poll (TNS Forschung)

CDU 34%
Greens 32%
SPD 19%
FDP 6%
Left 5%

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,722189,00.html

[DL]

What do the Greens in Baden-Wurttemberg actually believe in? As far as I know BW has had a rightwing government ever since WW2! The latest round of polls points to a Green-SPD government with the Green as premier. what explains this?

[Middle-aged Europe]

What do the Greens in Baden-Wurttemberg actually believe in? As far as I know BW has had a rightwing government ever since WW2! The latest round of polls points to a Green-SPD government with the Green as premier. what explains this?

Stuttgart 21. Greens oppose it, SPD support it. SPD's screwed.

Add the fact that Baden-Württemberg was always a Green stronghold. In all Bundestag elections since 1980, the Greens' result in Baden-Württemberg had always been better than the national one (or the West German one for that matter). 2009 election: 13.9% in Baden-Württemberg, 11.5% in West Germany, 10.9% nationally. In the SPD's case it's more of the opposite (generally weaker in B-W than nationally).

Historically, Baden-Württemberg was also the second German state where the Greens managed to enter the state parliament (in 1980, following Bremen in 1979). Today, some of Baden-Württemberg's larger cities also have Green mayors (Freiburg, Tübingen).

A major factor is certainly that the Baden-Württembergian Greens are one of the more "conservative"/centrist state chapters in the party (their leader Winfried Kretschmann is known as a devout Catholic, for example).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There are some areas in the state where the Greens do quite well in which don't seem like natural Green areas. And, of course, they finished second in Stuttgart in 2009.

[minionofmidas]

In a sense the strange thing about Baden-Württemberg since the 50s is the weakness of the SPD, not the Green strength - which is at least partly a function of SPD weakness. SPD and KPD did quite decently in many parts of the country in the Weimar Republic.

[Tender Branson]

Also, BW state elections poll by abs Marktforschung for Ulmer City Marketing:

36% (+24) Greens
28%  (-16) CDU
17%    (-8) SPD
  8%    (-3) FDP
  7%   (+4) Left
  4%    (-1) Others

60-36 Center-Left majority in f**kin Baden-Württemberg !

53-36 majority for SPD-Greens vs. current CDU-FDP state government !

LOL.

[Hans-im-Glück]

This are only polls. The Greens are on a wave, but is there still a wave for them when it is election time? I hope it, but I'm not sure.

[minionofmidas]

Also, BW state elections poll by abs Marktforschung for Ulmer City Marketing:

Who? What?

[minionofmidas]

This are only polls. The Greens are on a wave, but is there still a wave for them when it is election time? I hope it, but I'm not sure.

We have local elections early next year. I don't think it's particularly daring to hope for a Green plurality on Frankfurt city council.

[minionofmidas]

Lol, I just understood why theres all those BaWü polls.

2011 election calendar:

Mar 20th Saxony-Anhalt state
Mar 27th BaWü state, Rhineland Pfalz state, Hesse local
May 22nd Bremen
Sep 4th MeckPomm state
Sep 11th Lower Saxony local
Sep 18th Berlin

[Middle-aged Europe]

Mar 20th Saxony-Anhalt state
Mar 27th BaWü state, Rhineland Pfalz state, Hesse local

Ironically, Saxony-Anhalt and Rhineland-Palatinate are two of the three German states without any Green MPs in state parliament (the third one is Mecklenburg which votes in fall).

So in March the Greens are probably gonna try to get the state premier's position in Baden-Württemberg while at the same they still have to get past the 5% threshold in the other two states. Chances look good though. The most recent Infratest polls had the Greens at 9% in Saxony-Anhalt (+5% from last election) and 16% in Rhineland-Palatinate (+11%).

[minionofmidas]

The Greens falling below five percent in Rhineland Pfalz last time around came as quite a shock.

[DL]

The other bid story in BW is how the bottom has completely fallen out of CDU support. What have they done in pwer that has made them so unpopular? It wasn't so long ago that the CDU would routinely win absolute majorities in that state.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The other bid story in BW is how the bottom has completely fallen out of CDU support. What have they done in pwer that has made them so unpopular? It wasn't so long ago that the CDU would routinely win absolute majorities in that state.

- Fallout from the CDU's unpopularity on the federal level.

- Stuttgart 21.

- Use of excessive violence against S21 protesters (which is a related, but different topic than Stuttgart 21 itself; you can support S21 and still be appalled by the police's actions).

- Perhaps there's also a correlation between the CDU's unpopularity, the Greens' popularity, and Mappus' extraordinarily strong support for nuclear power?

- Finally, Stefan Mappus just isn't a smart man. The CDU could deal with the fact that he's a hardliner. But they can't handle that he's a hardliner and dumb.