EP elections 2014

[EPG]

The problem, for the EPP in particular, is that many of the best EC President candidates are serving heads of government, so they can't be seen to seek or campaign for another office from now until May.

In the English-speaking world, Juncker is associated with left-wing Eurofederalism (relative to the typical English-speaking country) and Schulz is a non-entity. Neither seems the right choice to keep the UK in the union.

I should have linked Ed Miliband's and Douglas Alexander's opposition to Schulz: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/01/labour-european-commission-president-martin-schulz

[Tender Branson]

ATV Austria Trend (sample = 1000):



Projected turnout: 40% (-6%)

http://atv.at/contentset/184821-atv-oesterreich-trend

[Zanas]

Are the FPÖ and the Greens on a tangible downward trend or is this just the MoE ?

I mean for the EP election, cause I just saw the national polls and wow... I did nazi that coming.

[Tender Branson]

Are the FPÖ and the Greens on a tangible downward trend or is this just the MoE ?

I mean for the EP election, cause I just saw the national polls and wow... I did nazi that coming.

The poll includes also TS and Martin, who have not yet said if they are running or not. There's some potential for more FPÖ protest support. But yeah, the FPÖ does currently better in national polls because of the HYPO-bank debate that's the main domestic topic now. In the EP elections, many FPÖ voters are simply staying home because the FPÖ does not advocate an EU-exit anymore.

Greens could be down slightly because NEOS is sucking votes away from them.

MoE applies for all parties ...

[Tender Branson]

ÖVP has first (non-saying) posters out:





On the other hand it's probably effective that they did not include the ÖVP-logo on the Othmar Karas poster, because Karas is well known and more popular than the party.

[EPG]

the FPÖ does currently better in national polls because of the HYPO-bank debate

Amazing.

[Middle-aged Europe]

New European election poll for Germany (FGW):

CDU/CSU 38%
SPD 26%
Greens 11%
Left 8%
AfD 6%
FDP 4%

[Zanas]

PASOK 5.9
ND    26.3
KKE 8.5
SYRIZA 26.3
XA 7.6
DIMAR 2.5
ANEL 4.2    
To Potami ("The River") 11.9 (!!!)

It's the second time I see this new list polled, and it sure escalated quickly : 7.5 in their first poll last week, and now this.

It seems to draw mostly Syriza, Greens, Dimar and a bit of Anel voters, maybe even a few XA who are just voting for the hell of it.

I'm thinking the soufflé will fall back eventually, but for now they really succeeded their entrance !

It's just been founded 10 days ago, as a sort of moderate hero centrist list, but it seems to lean more centre-left than centre-right.
                      

[Middle-aged Europe]

No data on smaller parties.

"Other parties - 7%"

[Diouf]

PASOK 5.9
ND    26.3
KKE 8.5
SYRIZA 26.3
XA 7.6
DIMAR 2.5
ANEL 4.2    
To Potami ("The River") 11.9 (!!!)

It's the second time I see this new list polled, and it sure escalated quickly : 7.5 in their first poll last week, and now this.

It seems to draw mostly Syriza, Greens, Dimar and a bit of Anel voters, maybe even a few XA who are just voting for the hell of it.

I'm thinking the soufflé will fall back eventually, but for now they really succeeded their entrance !

It's just been founded 10 days ago, as a sort of moderate hero centrist list, but it seems to lean more centre-left than centre-right.
                      

ALDEish?

No other Greek party is associated with ALDE, so that seems like the obvious choice.

[Zanas]

PASOK 5.9
ND    26.3
KKE 8.5
SYRIZA 26.3
XA 7.6
DIMAR 2.5
ANEL 4.2    
To Potami ("The River") 11.9 (!!!)

It's the second time I see this new list polled, and it sure escalated quickly : 7.5 in their first poll last week, and now this.

It seems to draw mostly Syriza, Greens, Dimar and a bit of Anel voters, maybe even a few XA who are just voting for the hell of it.

I'm thinking the soufflé will fall back eventually, but for now they really succeeded their entrance !

It's just been founded 10 days ago, as a sort of moderate hero centrist list, but it seems to lean more centre-left than centre-right.
                      

ALDEish?

No other Greek party is associated with ALDE, so that seems like the obvious choice.

We can only conjecture at this point, I've not found anything on their possible EP group, even though I read the Greek alphabet.
But yes, ALDE would seem like the probable outcome.

The founder is a TV presenter, but he won't be candidate himself. Candidates will include artists, writers...

[swl]

In the English-speaking world, Juncker is associated with left-wing Eurofederalism (relative to the typical English-speaking country) and Schulz is a non-entity. Neither seems the right choice to keep the UK in the union.

I think that's not really a relevant issue for two reasons.
The first one is that the EU should not jeopardize occasions to improve its democratic functioning just to keep the UK in.
The second is that the choice of next EU commission president will have barely any effect on the UK membership amyway, it's negligible compared to other factors such as the results of the Scottish referendum and of the general election.

[justfollowingtheelections]

Regarding the Potami, their leader is a well-known journalist who has made some really interesting documentaries such as this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1n5ACB32ak (a translation can be found in the comments).

He always carries a backpack and never wears a suit which obviously adds to his appeal.  He claims that he's neither on the left nor the right, but has "stolen" ideas both from the left and liberal ideologies.  He doesn't really take a stance on the memoranda, but he wants a smaller parliament. 
Regarding the EU elections, the reason he is not a candidate is because he feels he's not the right person for the job since he doesn't speak any foreign languages.  The party hasn't decided yet which EU group they will join but Theodorakis has said that while he is not eurosceptic at all he is not interested in joining EPP, S&D or ALDE because it seems to him they're more invested in sustaining the Brussels bureaucracy then improving the lives of european people.  My guess is that he will join the Greens.

A poll I saw published by the University of Macedonia (and which might be more credible since it wasn't ordered by the media has them very close to 2nd place:


And it looks like they're drawing votes mostly from DIMAR and ANEL:

[Zanas]

Here's how the University of Macedonia poll translates among decided voters :
Syriza 23.4
ND 17.1
To Potami 16.5
XA 11.4
KKE 10.1
Pasok 5.7
Dimar 2.5
Anel 1.9

I'm having a hard time believing ND, Potami and KKe's scores honestly. Let's wait for a few more polls to see.

Also an Italian poll out :
FI 23.4
PD 29.4
LN 4.5
UdC 1.6
AET 6.5
FdI 3.3
NCD 3.3
SC 0.9
M5S 22.6

Glad to see l'Altra Europa with a bit of traction. Hope to see it not completely fail for a change...

[Diouf]

Denmark Gallup

DF 15 % 3 seats
Liberals 14 % 4 seats
Soc Dem 13 % 4 seats
People's movement against the EU 5 % 1
Social Liberals 3 % 1/0
SF 3 % 1/0
Conservatives 2 % 0
Liberal Alliance 2 % 0
Others 1 % 0
Don't know/blank/won't vote etc 43 %

It's marginal who gets the seats in the electoral alliances. The Conservatives are quite close to gaining one of the liberal seats, and in many other polls SF and the Social Liberals can get a seat each from their electoral alliance with the Social Democrats whereas in this one only one of them can.

[Tender Branson]

After the 1st of 4 weeks of signature-collecting, the BZÖ already has 1200 of 2600 signatures.

The leftist "Europa Anders" alliance between Communists, Pirates and Wandel has 700.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I haven't being following this election too closely, so it might have already been covered, but could ALDE lose its third party role?

If FDP and the Lib Dems gets wiped down to three seats apiece (quite likely IMHO), they'd be down to 59 MEP's, which is dangerously close to Green-EFA's 58 seats. Of course, the Green's aren't doing well in France at all, but is their a chance they could make up for it by grabbing third place?

(Or, conversely, could either the far-left or right end up in third?)

[justfollowingtheelections]

Most polls show that the party of the European Left and ALDE will battle for 3rd place.  My guess, based on the polls I have seen is that the Left is the favorite right now.  

[Zanas]

Most polls show that the party of the European Left and ALDE will battle for 3rd place.  My guess, based on the polls I have seen is that the Left is the favorite right now.  

Every poll I've seen seem not to take into account the regional constituencies in France and assume that the FG here will take 7 seats. It won't, for the moment. 4 or 5 at best. I'm pretty sure polls are greatly overestimating the final EUL-NGL tally. And Greens will be decimated, so it's a pretty safe bet for the moment that ALDE will remain 3d group.

[Diouf]

ComRes UK poll with regional breakdown. Weighted for turnout so based on very low number of respondents.



Using this http://icon.cat/util/elections for each region, I get these numbers:

UKIP 25, Labour 21, Conservatives 14, Lib Dem 4, Greens 2, SNP 3, Plaid Cymru 1

[Diouf]

Denmark Epinion for DR. Don't knows, who made up 31 %, have been excluded.

Liberals 25 % 4 seats
DF 22 % 3
Social Democrats 22 % 3
Social Liberals 8 % 1
People's movement against the EU 7 % 1
SF 6 % 1
Conservatives 5 % 0
Liberal Alliance 3 % 0
Others 1 %

[Tender Branson]

New Market/Standard poll:

23% ÖVP
22% FPÖ
21% SPÖ
15% Greens
12% NEOS
  2% Europa Anders
  2% BZÖ
  2% TS
  1% Others

Projected turnout: 47% (who say they are certain to vote), +1% compared with 2009

http://derstandard.at/1392688397050/Umfrage-OeVP-hat-bei-EU-Wahl-Chance-auf-Platz-eins

[justfollowingtheelections]

Most polls show that the party of the European Left and ALDE will battle for 3rd place.  My guess, based on the polls I have seen is that the Left is the favorite right now.  

Every poll I've seen seem not to take into account the regional constituencies in France and assume that the FG here will take 7 seats. It won't, for the moment. 4 or 5 at best. I'm pretty sure polls are greatly overestimating the final EUL-NGL tally. And Greens will be decimated, so it's a pretty safe bet for the moment that ALDE will remain 3d group.

You're probably right.  I estimated the number of seats each group would have based on polls but I didn't take into account the different election systems each country uses.

[doktorb]

Plaid would be happy to hold on to one MEP. I've seen polls suggesting they could end up with none.

[EPG]

It's a race among Conservatives, Plaid and UKIP to finish second and third in Wales, because Labour will win 2 out of 4 seats if they get twice the share of the fourth-place party, which is very likely. Polls suggest Plaid will lose out. The BNP got a surprisingly high vote in 2009 which will probably transfer straight to UKIP, propelling them over Plaid to land in third place.