2013 Elections in Germany

[Franknburger]

26.12.2012, Forsa, Federal Election:

CDU/CSU 41
SPD 27
Grüne 13
Linke 8

FDP 4
Piraten 3

SPD-Green with no majority (40-49).

If the FDP were 1% higher, black-yellow would almost be re-elected (46-48).

Usual seasonal bumps. College students and young professionals are visiting their parents over Christmas (and high-school teachers are off to Crete or La Gomera for a bit of sun), so SPD and Greens drop by a point, while the CDU gains a bit. Wait until late January, when the well-off pensioneeers cruise the Caribbeans or take their annual spa treatment in the Czech Republic and Hungary, and you will have the CDU at 38%, while the SPD is back at 30%, and Greens at 15%.

The only interesting thing appears to be a slight move from the SPD towards the Left - not surprising, as Steinbrück is anything but a left-leaning SPD candidate.

[Franknburger]

Eh, plenty of politicians suffer from chronic foot-in-mouth syndrome; probably best to separate Steinbrück's rather severe case of that condition (which has been known about for many years anyway) from the SPD's structural difficulties.

Well, I knew from the start that with Steinbrück, things would not be easy. He single-handedly killed a reasonably working red-green coalition in North-Rhine Westphalia, just to find himself on the opposition bench after a historically unprecedented CDU-FDP win of the subsequent state election. But these two gaffes in a row go beyond my wildest expectations ..

One more reason to look for a black-green coalition in 2013 as the only feasible way to get some issues moved foreward in Germany. The last thing I want to see at the moment is Peer Steinbrück as Foreign Minister of a Grand Coalition - we Germans have already enough problems in the international (Euro) arena...

My prediction for the coming opinion polls:
CDU 40%  (-1, as the Christmas holiday bump recedes)
SPD 27% (no change, as post-Christmas upswing is eaten away by Steinbrück's gaffes)
Greens 15% (+2, half of it post-Christmas upswing, other half thanks to Steinbrück)
Linke 9% (+1%, thanks to Steinbrück)
FDP 4% (unchanged), maybe getting 5% due to Steinbrück)
Pirates 3% (unchanged), others 2%

[Franknburger]

New Brandenburg poll by Forsa for the MAZ:

Federal

28% [+3] SPD
27% [+3] CDU
26%  [-3] Left
  7% [+1] Greens
  4%  [-5] FDP
  3%  [nc] Pirates
  5% [+1] Others

Merkel leads Steinbrück by 51-22 in her "home state".

Merkel's 'home state'? You might say so, considering she grew up in Brandenburg - and was born in Hamburg, studied in Saxony (Leipzig), worked in Berlin pre-1990, then in Bonn (NRW)  ..

But her constituency is in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (since 1990), where her second husband works and resides. That state's interests is also what she is pushing forward - G8 summit in Heiligendamm, promoting wind energy (NORDEX is Mecklenburg's largest company by turnover), supporting shipbuilding deals with Russia, etc. So, the common German perception would be Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, not Brandenburg being Merkel's home state.

[Franknburger]

New unemployment report: 6.7% unemployment in December 2012, +0.2% against November, +0.1% against December 2011.
East-West split remains, but softens a bit: West 5.8% (+0.2% against 2011),. East 10.3% (-0.3%). Employment gains highest in Berlin (-0.4% against 2011), Saxony (-0.4%) and Brandenburg (-0.3%). Biggest umemployment increase in Saarland (+0.5%) and NRW (+0.3%). Lower Saxony unchanged at 6.4%, Bavaria 3.6% (+0.2%).

PDF map by county and detailed data can be found here:
http://www.arbeitsagentur.de/zentraler-Content/A01-Allgemein-Info/A011-Presse/Publikation/pdf/Landkarten-Eckwerte-2012-12.pdf

[Franknburger]

Newly published survey on renewable energy (TNS infratest. 4.060 respondents):

"Increasing the use of renewable energy is important (24%) / very or extremely important (69%)"


Opinion on the recent increase of the renewable energy levy (payable by all non-industrial consumers) by the federal government to 5 €ct / kwH is more ambiguous: 51% deem the increase to be too high, 44% acceptable, 2% still too low (2% no opinion). Acdptance varies strongly by state, and is especially low in Eastern Germany.
 

[Franknburger]

Why is Linke below the 5% threshold?

Because Niedersachsen is in the west.

When the party is polling 7% nationally, that's to be expected.

Got it. One other thing. Why does a Black-Green coalition poll so low? It's even worse than the CDU-FDP one.

Because it makes no sense whatsoever?

That is a pretty simplified answer.  The more complete one:

1) Niedersachsen has made the experience that a state-level Red-Green coalition can actually work (Schröder-Trittin from 1990-1998), unlike many other states, in which such coaltitions typically got killed by the SPD. In addition, most major cities (Hannover, Osnabrück, Göttingen, Lüneburg) have a long tradition of reasonably well-working red-green alliances, while the 2006 black-green "test balloon" in Oldenburg failed miserably.
Thus there should be quite a Red-Green preference in the green-leaning part of the electorate (including potential voters for Pirates and the Left) - and with SPD leaners anyway.

2.) Niedersachsen's party alignments are still strongly driven by the catholic-protestant divide. Compare, e.g.. party votes in the 2009 federal election for the neighbouring constituencies of Cloppenburg-Vechta (CDU 54.5, SPD 16.5, Green 5.3), and Diepholz-Nienburg (CDU 33.8, SPD 27.7, Green 10.0). Socio-economically, these two constituencies are much alike (rural/ small town, farm-based, strong agro-processing and agricultural machine-building), but the former is majority catholic, while the latter is protestant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldenburg_M%C3%BCnsterland. Interactive map for 2009 results per constituency can be found here: http://www.nls.niedersachsen.de/BW2009/start.htm

Unlike in other states. e.g. Baden-Würtenberg, the Lower Saxony Greens have never made inroads into the catholic part of the local electorate. To the opposite, their top candidate, Stefan Wenzel, is member of the Synode of the German Evangelical (Lutheran) Church. As such, reluctance of the rural / catholic part of CDU voters to go along with the Greens is quite understandable.

3.) Another key constituency of the state's CDU is "Heimatvertriebene" (post WW II displaced persons from former German territories in the East). In 1950, they accounted for 27% of the State's total population, concentrated in the central eastern part of the State (roughly everything east of the middle Weser - Hameln to Verden), and, to a lesser extent, along the Elbe and upper Weser towards Wilhelmshaven and Oldenburg. Their integration into the CDU did not occur immediately, but via several other parties - BHE, DP, and, most importantly, the NPD in the late 1960s / early 1970s.  Thus, you still find a (demographically decreasing) number of CDU politicians in Eastern Lower Saxony with late 1960s/ early 1970s NPD past, the most prominent of which is the current major of Brunswick (CDU, ruling with FDP support).  This, in turn, is not pushing enthusiasm for any kind of cooperation with the CDU in the left-leaning part of the electorate in central-eastern Lower Saxony.

The above also explains why a 64% job approval will most likely not be enough for David McAllister to keep his job. There are just too many people in Lower Saxony who will never vote for a guy from the "black with brown dots"-party, irrespectively of his personality and performance. And the FDP, which might otherwise help him to the post, has burnt its image nationally too badly to obtain a meaningful number of swing voters.

[Franknburger]

*is motivated by above post to check newbie's profile to see where in Germany he's from*

Oh yeah, and a belated "welcome to the forum!" is in order, too!

Thanks for the welcome! Newbie was born and grew up in Hannover (surprise, surprise !). studied and lived for many years in Hamburg (when not travelling the world working as a consultant), and is since more than ten years residing in Schleswig-Holstein's "bacon belt" northeast of Hamburg.

On a further disclosure: In my youth, I was among the founding members of the GAL, after getting fed up with the way my school-mate Olaf Scholz was running the local JuSo group. However, the GAL somehow lost me when they computerised their membership files, and I never bothered to remind them about me ... 

[Franknburger]

*is motivated by above post to check newbie's profile to see where in Germany he's from*

Oh yeah, and a belated "welcome to the forum!" is in order, too!

Thanks for the welcome! Newbie was born and grew up in Hannover (surprise, surprise !). studied and lived for many years in Hamburg (when not travelling the world working as a consultant), and is since more than ten years residing in Schleswig-Holstein's "bacon belt" northeast of Hamburg.

On a further disclosure: In my youth, I was among the founding members of the GAL, after getting fed up with the way my school-mate Olaf Scholz was running the local JuSo group. However, the GAL somehow lost me when they computerised their membership files, and I never bothered to remind them about me ...  

Good to see.

So you must be at least 50 years old ?

50-60 I guess ?

Turning 50 this year.

[Franknburger]

A great analysis, Franknburger. Two things aside and in addition to it:

3.) Another key constituency of the state's CDU is "Heimatvertriebene" (post WW II displaced persons from former German territories in the East). In 1950, they accounted for 27% of the State's total population, concentrated in the central eastern part of the State (roughly everything east of the middle Weser - Hameln to Verden), and, to a lesser extent, along the Elbe and upper Weser towards Wilhelmshaven and Oldenburg. Their integration into the CDU did not occur immediately, but via several other parties - BHE, DP, and, most importantly, the NPD in the late 1960s / early 1970s.  Thus, you still find a (demographically decreasing) number of CDU politicians in Eastern Lower Saxony with late 1960s/ early 1970s NPD past, the most prominent of which is the current major of Brunswick (CDU, ruling with FDP support).  This, in turn, is not pushing enthusiasm for any kind of cooperation with the CDU in the left-leaning part of the electorate in central-eastern Lower Saxony.

First: It has never been thoroughly proven that the German refugees voted overwhelmingly for right-wing parties. There are also different instances; in rural southern Germany, for example, it were refugees who built up the local Social Democratic Party chapters after the war.

I aggree that there is no statistical proof how refugees tended to vote - but it is nevertheless clear which party collected most of their functionnaires, which was the CDU / CSU.

I also don't think that one can compare Southern Germany with Lower Saxony in this respect:
For once, the integration challenges (and resulting tensions) were much larger. In Eastern Lower Saxony, as in Schleswig-Holstein, you had roughly one refugee coming on every local-born - a ratio that, with the possible exception of the Bavarian-Czech border districts, was far higher than anywhere else in West Germany.
Secondly, by around 1970 the Lower Saxon SPD had become the party of the protestant (urban & rural)  establishment, as previous such parties, including DNVP and NSDAP, had been throughly discredited by / after WW II. [The heavily industrialised part of Hannover where I grew up had a sizeable portion of pre WW I polish immigrants - roughly half of my primary school mates had Polish last names. It was out of any question that any 'German' interested in politics would join the SPD, while any 'Pole' would join the CDU. And the 'Germans', of course, would rather be suburban middle-class, while the 'Poles' would be blue-collar.] As such, refugees, to the extent they were not already (as catholic Silesians) attracted by the CDU, needed an anti-establishment platform, which was first offered by the BHE, then the NPD, and ultimately, especially after Willy Brandt's formal cession of eastern territories to Poland and the USSR in 1970, by the CDU.

It is perfectly imaginable and understandable for me that things went the other way round in rural Southern Germany, and refugees there flocked to the SPD in opposition to the prevailing CDU/CSU establishment (actually a pretty fascinating detail of the southern German political landscape that I had not been aware of before).

Second: By now, the political and electoral influence of the organized refugees ("Heimatvertriebene") is marginal at best. They never really managed to pass their identity and ideas to the following generations, so when the last "real" refugees die, it will be basically over for them. As you said, however, their extremist right-wing image is still very much alive. Especially for the Greens and The Left, the "Heimatvertriebene" are a popular boogeyman, and every CDU politician mentioning the matter will immediately be accused of nazi connections. This doesn't correspond to the real political impact of the last refugees, though.

True! A lot of my friends, and my wife, are 'second-generation' "Heimatvertriebene" (at least from one parental side), without self-identifying so. As to the "real" refugees, those who have survived displacement and hunger tend to be quite durable (at least I hope so for my mother-in-law), so they may still be around for a while as loyal CDU voters (in Northern Germany).

However, I think it is equally important to recognise and understand the political socialisation of left-leaning people of my generation (babyboomers), which often was started by older relatives making statements like "The Nazis were not worse than the Russians", followed by swearing on the treacherous SPD giving up German lands in the East. So, the refugee functionnaire might be the bogeyman, but the real source of anger was the own grandfather or uncle  - and that is what is making the "Heimatvertriebenen" issue so emotional.
The real tragic is that the refugees rarely shared their experience. My mother-in-law, e.g., only recently told me and my wife how she, at the age of seven, saw her mother being raped by a Russian soldier. Its understandable - this is not the kind of stories you really want to tell at the coffee table. But since most of such stories have probably never been told, the "real" refugees came, and are still coming, across as backward-oriented, revanchist, nazi-leaning phrase-mongers.

[Franknburger]

http://m.thelocal.de/politics/20100116-24621.html

This was kind of the start of their crash.

And they pretty much sealed the deal when, after running their election campaign on the "More net from gross" (income) slogan, they agreed to raising public system health insurance premiums by 0,5%, without coming up with any meaningful cost reduction proposal.  Note that the Ministry of Health is run by the FDP.
SPD and Greens have for long been demanding to liberalise the pharmacy sector, allowing the entrance of internet pharmacies and larger pharmacy chains, in order to cut down on the exessively high costs of pharmaceutical distribution, but self-employed pharmacists are known to be one of the most loyal FDP voters groups ..

Oh yes, and then there were the Lower Saxony and Schleswig Holstein FDP divisions running  "shut down dangerous nuclear reactors" campaigns during the respective state elections, in reaction to several major failures of the Krümmel reactor which is located some 30 km south-east of Hamburg. And what was the first action of the FDP-run Ministry of Economy? Revoking the old red-green compromise on gradually phasing out nuclear energy. After Merkel's post-Fukushima turnaround, the Krümmel reactor was the first to be immediately shut down, but that is being credited to Merkel, not to the FDP.

Need more? Just ask, there is plenty ..

[Franknburger]

FORSA, 09.01.2013, Federal Elections:

CDU/CSU: 42% (+1)
SPD: 25% (-2)
Grüne: 15% (+2)
Linke: 9% (+1)

FDP: 2% (-2)
Piraten: 3% (0)
Sonstige: 4% (0)

FDP down to only 2%, following the leadership discussion during their recent party conference!
SPD decrease continues. [Today's "Joke of the day" in my local newspaper: "What is the measurement unit for the average interval between two gaffes?" "One Steinbrück"]

Chancellorship preference:
Merkel           58% (+7)
Steinbrück     22% (-4)

[Franknburger]

New Bavaria state election poll (09.01.2013): Absolute CSU majority possible



FW=Freie Wähler (Association of local / community level independent lists). 10.2% in last Bavarian election, but have remained marginal in other state elections (1-3 %). Have vowed for a coaltion with SPD and Greens to oust the current Bavarian CSU/FDP government.

Sonstige: Piraten 3%, Linke 2%

[Franknburger]

It's really time for the CSU to experience the opposition bench.

Won't happen, but Ude would be a good Ministerpräsident.

CSU has not won yet. Comparing the current Bavaria poll with previous ones, it seems that the anti-CSU block remains stable, i.e. disappointed SPD voters defect to the Greens or the FW, but not to the CSU.

Now, let's assume that until the election in Autumn 2013

(i) Unemployment in Bavaria will continue to rise (decreasing car exports),
(ii) Discontent about the increase of the renewable energy levy will grow (it will take some time until people really feel it in their pocket), and the increase is blamed on black-yellow,
(iii) Ramsauer's performance as Federal Ministter of Transport gets publicly questioned (Berlin-Brandenburg Airport, major cost increases for Stuttgart 21 and for the Fehmarnbelt Connection), and he does not stop to call for the introduction of motorway tolls for passenger cars;

this might peel another 3-4% from the CSU's current standing.

Assuming further that

(iv) Ude manages to detach himself from Steinbrück (and some other SPD highlights - Andrea Nahles comes to mind ..), and
(v) the opposition parties are able to convince voters that a change in power is achievable,

some FDP-leaners (who were never the CSU's best friends) and Pirate-leaners might decide that kicking the CSU out will be more fun than making a fundamental, but ultimately ineffective political statement - and suddenly the CSU majority is gone.

Yes, I know, it's a number of "if"s ..

[Franknburger]

Where are Freie Wahler on the left-right spectrum?

Basically center-rights that don't like the CSU. They've declared their support for a SPD-Green-FW coalition.

Freie Wähler are a bit like the over-40 variant of the Pirates. Their common agenda is increasing local-level autonomy, better funding of communities, and strengthening direct democracy. Beyond that, it gets pretty diffuse. On the local level, they often form in opposition to specific infrastructure or investment projects, typically driven by a mix of environmental and financial / economical concerns (e.g. environmentalists and inner-city retailers uniting against a planned greenfield shopping mall).

The Bavarian state level Freie Wähler owed their 2009 success to a good extent to CSU party-rebel Gabriele Pauli, who had criticised CSU party establishment and politics from a (moderate) feminist perspective.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriele_Pauli

The Freie Wähler party leader has frequently come out as strong euro-sceptic, while the Bavarian secretary general is a political scientist with research focus on European integration. One of the most prominent supporters outside Bavaria is Hans-Olaf Henkel, former CEO of IBM Europe and ex-President of BDI (German Association of Manufacturing Industries).

[Franknburger]

Where are Freie Wahler on the left-right spectrum?

Rightish. Basically the party for former CSU voters who have become disgruntled with the CSU... which is for all intents and purposes also their main political and election strategy.

At the same time, they also like to emphasize their independence within the party system, especially in regards to CDU/CSU and FDP. Back in 2010 they supported SPD/Green candidate Joachim Gauck for president and not CDU candidate Christian Wulff. Which wasn't that surprising, considering that Gauck is just their kind of "independent conservative". So they're also a bit of a anti-mainstream protest party.

Checked a bit on the demographic profile of Freie Wähler voters in Bavaria in 2009 (infratest dimap and Forschungsgruppe Wahlen exit polls):

• less educated (university graduates underrepresented)
• middle-aged men (35-60 years)
• young to middle-aged women (18-24 years old women overrepresented!)
• no overall gender gap
• predominantly rural
• slightly stronger among catholics than among protestants (possibly due to rural focus)
• around 50% of votes gained against 2003 came from CSU

[Franknburger]

Now, let's assume that until the election in Autumn 2013 [...]

Won't happen. Here is why: German voters see the effects of the economic crisis in other European states (60% youth unemployment etc.) and are thankful that Merkel, CDU and CSU "saved" them from such misery. This notion is, of course, not true: The black-yellow coalition has done exactly zilch to this effect. If anything, the former red-green coalition's social and economic reforms are responsible for Germany's relative economic stability. The voters' perception, however, is different.

As long as this doesn't change - i.e, as long as the crisis in Europe persists, which will be for a very long time - the Conservative reign over Germany will continue. That's even more true for Bavaria, traditionally more conservative than Germany in general.

Yes and no ..

Clearly, German voters are no friends to 'chasing away the captain when the ship is in heavy sea' - hence the high job approval for Merkel.  I therefore also have no doubt that she will remain Chancellor after the 2013 federal election, but she will have to rule with another partner (SPD or Greens), that will shift government policies further to the left. And, in fact, the current government has already been much more centrist than I had expected. If anybody had told me three years ago that a black-yellow government would abolish the army draft, speed-up the closing-down of nuclear plants, maintain and slightly expand minimum wages, and maybe even (that's my bet for their final 'June surprise') introduce some kind of women quota for management positions, I would have called her/him a phantast.

But Bavaria is a completely different story. The state government is not a relevant actor on the European stage (instead, it is rather a constant source of disturbing background noise). And, the CSU has been in power for so long that even traditionally conservative voters feel that a change could be healthy. Not saying that the change will happen, but it might ..

B.t.w.: Germany's current economic strength is of course to some extent attributable to the innovation pull, and the reduction of labour costs that were triggered by the red-green ecological tax reform. Mostly, however, Germany is now receiving the benefits of its geographic proximity to Central and Eastern Europe (and Scandinavia), while Southern Europe, on top of home-made problems, has to cope with the post-Arab spring economic crisis on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea. 

[Franknburger]

3 new state election polls:

Lower Saxony - Forschungsgruppe Wahlen for ZDF

39% CDU
33% SPD
13% Greens
  5% FDP
  3% Left
  3% Pirates
  4% Others

SPD-Greens has a slim 46-44 majority over CDU-FDP.

Note that the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen figures are not a poll, but a projection.  As such, they are also including longer-term partisan trends and voters' tactical considerations. Unfortunately, neither the underlying actual polling data nor the detailed mechanism to convert this data into a projection are being published.

Further details from the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen poll:

• 50% of CDU leaners think that CDU voters should help the FDP to pass the 5% threshold
• 42% of respondents are yet unsure for whom to vote, or whether to vote at all. (Again, no further breakdown between 'undecided' and 'not sure whether I will vote" has been published.)
• Coalition preferences (% "would like", i.e. multiple answers possible): CDU/SPD 47, SPD/Green 47, CDU/FDP 30, CDU/Green 26

My guesses:

• Actual FDP support is considerably lower than 5%, probably not more than some 2%. The projection, however, assumes that enough CDU leaners will 'lend' their vote to the FDP to pull them above 5%. This also implies that current CDU support might rather be around 42% (i.e. where the GMS poll puts it), but has been reduced by some 3% to account for FDP 'vote lending'.
• Roughly half of the 42% 'undecided' are only unsure whether to vote CDU or FDP.  To which extent the remaining 21% 'undecided' are still up for grabs by the CDU, or only swinging between SPD/Greens/Linke/Pirates, is left for anyone to guess.

In any case, this will become a nail-biter.

[Franknburger]

As addendum to my last post, in illustration on the difference between Forschungsgruppe Wahlen projections and polls, a comparison of their December 2012 Federal results (outdated, January figures should come in tomorrow):

CDU: Poll 44, Projection 40
SPD: Poll 34, Projection 30
Greens: Poll 13, Projection 13
FDP: Poll 2, Projection 4
Linke: Poll 5, Projection 7
Pirates: Poll 1, Projection 3
Others: Poll n/a, Projection 3

In other words: In their projection, they typically shift 2% from CDU to FDP, 2% from CDU to others (makes sense, NPD etc. which may not be stated in polls), 2% from SPD to Linke, and 2% from SPD to Pirates / others.

[Franknburger]

PS: Strangely strong showing by the Left in Bavaria @ 4% in the Forsa poll.

But they already got 4.4% in the 2008 state election, so maybe they could pull off something similar. Or the poll is just bad. Probably the latter.

For the 2009 Federal election, FORSA was by far the most accurate pollster. They were the only pollster which saw the rise of the Pirates coming, did not - like everybody else - overestimate CDU performance, and were one of the two (emnid being the other) that had the Left correctly at 12%.
On the other hand, their Bavaria poll has been in the field for an extremely long time (since Dec 17), so the findings may be partly outdated. That should, however, first of all put their SPD result in question.

[Franknburger]

Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, 11.01.2013, Federal Elections

Raw poll data [projection in brackets]

CDU:        49 (+5)     [42 (+2)]
SPD:        27 (-7)      [28 (-2)]
Greens:    13 (-)        [13 (-)]
Linke:       4 (-1)     [  6 (-1)]

FDP:         2 (-)        [ 4 (-)]
Piraten:     2 (+1)      [ 3 (-)]
Others       n/a          [  4 (+1)]

Preferred chancellor: Merkel 65%, Steinbrück 25% [SPD leaners: 27% Merkel, 62% Steinbrück, Grüne leaners: 43% Merkel, 47% Steinbrück]

Politician scores: Gains for Merkel, Schäuble, Seehofer, Trittin; losses for Steinbrück, Gabriel, Westerwelle, Rösler

Chart slideshow with further questions:
http://wahltool.zdf.de/Politbarometer/mediathekflash.shtml?2013_01_11
[long-term trendlines can be accessed via the menu on the right-hand side]

[Franknburger]

INSA/YouGov poll, Federal election (15.1.2013)

CDU 39 ()
SPD 28 ()
Grüne 15 (+1)
Linke 7 ()

FDP 4 ()
Piraten 3 ()

Freie Wähler 2 ()
others 2 (-1)

Less swingy than the other recent polls, but its internet polling.

[Franknburger]

You beat me on the FORSA poll! Nevertheless, one more interesting detail:  According to FORSA, many SPD leaners, frustrated and irritated by the debate on Steinbrück, "duck away and don't dare to commit to their party".

But i still have one:

EMNID, Bavaria State elections (for CSU!), 15.01.13:

CSU      48 ()
SPD      20 (-1)
Grüne   12 (+2)
FW         8 ()

FDP       3 (-1)
Linke     3 (+1)
Piraten   3 (-1)
Others   3 ()

Changes relate to last EMNID poll (14.10.2012)  

[Franknburger]

If you had tried to combine FORSA and EMNID Bavaria in one post, I would have beaten you on both ..

[Franknburger]

It is surprising that the Greens are not profiting more from the SPD's weakness (o.k., in Bavaria they are, but not in the Federal election polls). Seems like everybody is waiting whether they will stand to their red-green commitment once the Lower Saxony election is through ..

[Franknburger]

So is CDU-FDP (or CDU alone? lol) practically destined for re-election if black-yellow is re-elected in Niedersachsen? I'm starting to get that impression.

Might get even worse (or more interesting, depending on your perspective) in Lower Saxony: FDP in with CDU loan votes, CDU / FPD and SPD / Greens virtually tied, and Linke in due to frustrated SPD leaners.

Resulting government options:
a.) Grand coalition (led by CDU)
b.) Black - green
c.) Traffic-light (note that the Lower Saxony FDP leader and Minister of Environment, Stefan Birkner, is the brother-in-law of Schleswig-Holstein's Green party leader and Minister of Environment, Robert Habeck)
d.) Red-green minority government tolerated by Linke.

Prepare for at least three weeks of non-stop drama.

Bonus questions: Provided FDP comes in with CDU loan votes, the CDU may only get to 36-37%. Still ahead of SPD, but more than 5% loss agianst 2008. Will McAllister survive or step down?

If CDU comes in at 36%, they would be entitled to 49 (out of 135)  seats, but they won 68 FPTP mandates in 2008. So, if the CDU loses less than 20 FPTP mandates to SPD, any senior government member that fails to conquer her/his district is out of the new Landtag. McAllister  runs in a reasonably safe CDU district, but not so his "crown princes" (Schünemann in Holzminden- lean CDU, Althusmann in Lüneburg - lean SPD, Ökzan in Hannover-Mitte - safe SPD).

FPTP projection map for Lower Saxony (54 CDU, 33 SPD): http://www.election.de/cgi-bin/content.pl?url=/img/poll/ns_wp_130112.html
P.S.1: I personally do not dare to make any projection for the national level until we know about the conposition of the next Lower Saxony government.

P.S.2: One thing is sure - unless CDU/ FDP cruise to victory in Lower Saxony, after Sunday, Steinbrück's gaffes will disappear from the headlines for some weeks ...