German Elections & Politics

[parochial boy]

Why are the Greens so strong in Baden-Württemberg? Is it just a natural result of having large, well educated, middle class populations in Freiburg and Stuttgart?

[FredLindq]

Baden-Würtemberg or just Baden is a traditional liberal stronghold.

[Tender Branson]

Why are the Greens so strong in Baden-Württemberg? Is it just a natural result of having large, well educated, middle class populations in Freiburg and Stuttgart?

[Bumaye]

Spent the last three days collecting signatures but apparently we did it! Die PARTEI will be on the ballot in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and with that in all 16 states! Last election the party only made it onto 5 state ballots. With how hopeless many leftists are right now regarding the chances for R2G I think it will be at least 0,7% in September but if things go right I could see us getting 1% nationwide. In addition to Martin Sonneborn and Serdar Somuncu a few days ago Nico Semsrott was named as frontrunner in Berlin so that are quite some figureheads. Die PARTEI currently has 24.000 members by the way, the AfD for comparison has 28.000 members.

 

[MAINEiac4434]

Spent the last three days collecting signatures but apparently we did it! Die PARTEI will be on the ballot in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and with that in all 16 states! Last election the party only made it onto 5 state ballots. With how hopeless many leftists are right now regarding the chances for R2G I think it will be at least 0,7% in September but if things go right I could see us getting 1% nationwide. In addition to Martin Sonneborn and Serdar Somuncu a few days ago Nico Semsrott was named as frontrunner in Berlin so that are quite some figureheads. Die PARTEI currently has 24.000 members by the way, the AfD for comparison has 28.000 members.

 

Die PARTEI are a joke party, while the AfD is a joke.

[Former President tack50]

Spent the last three days collecting signatures but apparently we did it! Die PARTEI will be on the ballot in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and with that in all 16 states! Last election the party only made it onto 5 state ballots. With how hopeless many leftists are right now regarding the chances for R2G I think it will be at least 0,7% in September but if things go right I could see us getting 1% nationwide. In addition to Martin Sonneborn and Serdar Somuncu a few days ago Nico Semsrott was named as frontrunner in Berlin so that are quite some figureheads. Die PARTEI currently has 24.000 members by the way, the AfD for comparison has 28.000 members.

 

I wonder, what would happen if the joke party got seats? Also, don't they have an MEP? What's he doing?

[Bumaye]

I wonder, what would happen if the joke party got seats? Also, don't they have an MEP? What's he doing?

 
  
What you think would happen? Die PARTEI has seats in several city councils and county parliaments for years. They simply do their job. Funnier and more colorful then others but still. And so does MEP Sonneborn. He spoke in the parliament about things like the Armenian genocide, acts of torture by the CIA or Ireland refusing to collect taxes from Apple. He is in the delegation for cooperation with the Korean Peninsula and a member of the cultural committee. Additionally he reports about things that go wrong in Brussels and Strasbourg in his series "Sonneborn saves the EU" in cooperation with Spiegel TV.

[Suburbia]

Is the city of Berlin very liberal like most cities, or is it a rare conservative-leaning city?

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Is the city of Berlin very liberal like most cities, or is it a rare conservative-leaning city?

Berlin is extremely liberal for the most part. Nevertheless, there are some upscale neighborhoods in the west (boroughs Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Reinickendorf and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf) and some Trump-style working class neighborhoods (boroughs Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Treptow-Köpenick, Lichtenberg and Pankow) and in the east.
The polling location map of the latest Berlin state election is a good litmus test:

[Middle-aged Europe]

Generally speaking, Berlin has a Green core at its center which is directly surrounded by a ring of SPD precincts in the middle which in turn is surrounded by a half ring of CDU precincts in the outer West, and a half ring of Left precincts in the outer East. As you can see above, the AfD managed to make significant inroads in the traditional Left precincts in the outer East though.

So, the city somewhat resembles a Matryoshka doll.  Berlin is rather left-wing or more precisely "culturally alternative" in the center, and becomes increasingly conservative the further you move towards the West and increasingly "populist"(economically left-wing, socially right-wing) the further you move towards the East.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Why are the Greens so strong in Baden-Württemberg? Is it just a natural result of having large, well educated, middle class populations in Freiburg and Stuttgart?

I think the Greens in Baden-Württemberg have always been a bit more conservative than the national Green Party, even before the rise of Kretschmann (it's important not to confuse cause and effect here).

Then you have the effect that some voters in Baden-Württemberg were increasingly fed-up with the CDU after their 60-year rule, especially after the short and abysmal tenure of the final CDU minister-president Stefan Mappus who by all accounts is a moron. The Baden-Württembergian Greens' relative conservativeness then helped them to become a significant opposition force and alternative to the then-ruling CDU. So in part, they managed to take the role the SPD is playing elsewhere.

[Suburbia]

Is the city of Berlin very liberal like most cities, or is it a rare conservative-leaning city?

Berlin is extremely liberal for the most part. Nevertheless, there are some upscale neighborhoods in the west (boroughs Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Reinickendorf and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf) and some Trump-style working class neighborhoods (boroughs Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Treptow-Köpenick, Lichtenberg and Pankow) and in the east.
The polling location map of the latest Berlin state election is a good litmus test:

Are the conservative parts of Berlin similar to the American working class vs. elite upscale tensions?

Where is the most conservative part of Germany located?

[Hifly]

Is the city of Berlin very liberal like most cities, or is it a rare conservative-leaning city?

Berlin is extremely liberal for the most part. Nevertheless, there are some upscale neighborhoods in the west (boroughs Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Reinickendorf and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf) and some Trump-style working class neighborhoods (boroughs Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Treptow-Köpenick, Lichtenberg and Pankow) and in the east.
The polling location map of the latest Berlin state election is a good litmus test:

Are the conservative parts of Berlin similar to the American working class vs. elite upscale tensions?

Where is the most conservative part of Germany located?

No.

[Tender Branson]

Where is the most conservative part of Germany located?

The most conservative+populist right areas in Germany are in Bavaria, southern Baden-Württemberg, the state of Saxony and the area around Cloppenburg-Vechta in Lower Saxony (close to the border to the Netherlands). Those are all areas in which the CDU/CSU got more than 55% and/or in which the AfD did really well too.

[DavidB.]

I don't think AfD did that well at all in the deep black CDU areas in Niedersachsen. In Cloppenburg-Vechta they only got 2.3% of the Zweitstimmen.

[Tender Branson]

I don't think AfD did that well at all in the deep black CDU areas in Niedersachsen.

That's why I wrote "and/or", because the AfD's good performance mostly in the East.

If we combine September's expected results, CDU+AfD will get 60-65% in many eastern areas ...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Are the conservative parts of Berlin...

Such things don't really exist.

[Bumaye]

Where is the most conservative part of Germany located?

The most conservative+populist right areas in Germany are in Bavaria, southern Baden-Württemberg, the state of Saxony and the area around Cloppenburg-Vechta in Lower Saxony (close to the border to the Netherlands). Those are all areas in which the CDU/CSU got more than 55% and/or in which the AfD did really well too.

 
 
I'd like to add Vorpommern. In last years election Vorpommern-Greifswald III (32,3%) and Vorpommern-Greifswald II (27,6%) had the AfD far in the lead as strongest party with the CDU in districts both at ~20% plus 6% in both districts for the NPD. In Vorpommern-Rügen II all three combined had like 53% and 52% in Vorpommern-Greifswald V.

[Tender Branson]

Interesting new YouGov poll:

"Should (insert state) secede from Germany and become independent ?"

32% Bayern
22% Thüringen
22% Saarland

(...)

8% each for Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein & Rheinland-Pfalz

http://www.bild.de/politik/inland/bundesland/umfrage-bundeslaender-wollen-raus-aus-deutschland-52565436.bild.html

[Former President tack50]

Interesting new YouGov poll:

"Should (insert state) secede from Germany and become independent ?"

32% Bayern
22% Thüringen
22% Saarland

(...)

8% each for Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein & Rheinland-Pfalz

http://www.bild.de/politik/inland/bundesland/umfrage-bundeslaender-wollen-raus-aus-deutschland-52565436.bild.html

Yikes, those are actually really high numbers!

For reference around 25% of Basques or 42% of Catalans want independence. I wonder why there are no relevant "Bayern/Thuringen/Rheinland-Pfalz nationalist party" like here. They don't even need to be full on independence, just wanting more money and autonomy would be good enough

[TheSaint250]

Interesting new YouGov poll:

"Should (insert state) secede from Germany and become independent ?"

32% Bayern
22% Thüringen
22% Saarland

(...)

8% each for Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein & Rheinland-Pfalz

http://www.bild.de/politik/inland/bundesland/umfrage-bundeslaender-wollen-raus-aus-deutschland-52565436.bild.html

Yikes, those are actually really high numbers!

For reference around 25% of Basques or 42% of Catalans want independence. I wonder why there are no relevant "Bayern/Thuringen/Rheinland-Pfalz nationalist party" like here. They don't even need to be full on independence, just wanting more money and autonomy would be good enough

I believe there is a Bavarian regional party. It's not particularly strong though

[parochial boy]

Interesting new YouGov poll:

"Should (insert state) secede from Germany and become independent ?"

32% Bayern
22% Thüringen
22% Saarland

(...)

8% each for Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein & Rheinland-Pfalz

http://www.bild.de/politik/inland/bundesland/umfrage-bundeslaender-wollen-raus-aus-deutschland-52565436.bild.html

Yikes, those are actually really high numbers!

For reference around 25% of Basques or 42% of Catalans want independence. I wonder why there are no relevant "Bayern/Thuringen/Rheinland-Pfalz nationalist party" like here. They don't even need to be full on independence, just wanting more money and autonomy would be good enough

This really falls under "polling hypotheticals" so treat it with extreme caution. If any of these was  to become an actually salient question, then the numbers would change dramatically.

Eg the UK AV referendum, 60 odd % of people supported AV when it was some distant hypothetical idea, that dropped down to 30% when they actually held a referendum

[mgop]

Interesting new YouGov poll:

"Should (insert state) secede from Germany and become independent ?"

32% Bayern
22% Thüringen
22% Saarland

(...)

8% each for Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein & Rheinland-Pfalz

http://www.bild.de/politik/inland/bundesland/umfrage-bundeslaender-wollen-raus-aus-deutschland-52565436.bild.html

beautiful numbers. if frau merkel gets another term we could have independent bavaria. that would be great!

[SNJ1985]

I believe there is a Bavarian regional party. It's not particularly strong though

They won 17 seats in the Bundestag back in 1949. They lost all of them in the 1953 election and haven't won any since then.

[Tender Branson]

Interesting new YouGov poll:

"Should (insert state) secede from Germany and become independent ?"

32% Bayern
22% Thüringen
22% Saarland

(...)

8% each for Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein & Rheinland-Pfalz

http://www.bild.de/politik/inland/bundesland/umfrage-bundeslaender-wollen-raus-aus-deutschland-52565436.bild.html

beautiful numbers. if frau merkel gets another term we could have independent bavaria. that would be great!

LOLno. From what I understand, the German constitution bans secession of a state from the mother (or father)land.