Austrian Elections & Politics 2.0 (Presidential runoff re-vote: 4 Dec. 2016)

[Tender Branson]

The latest Profil magazine poll from Unique Research:

32% FPÖ
24% ÖVP
23% SPÖ
12% Greens
  8% NEOS
  1% Others

http://www.profil.at/oesterreich/umfrage-fpoe-prozentpunkte-regierungsparteien-6240042

If elections were tomorrow, would you expect a real result like this or is the FPO just pumped up in polls..

National polls tend to be accurate, so yeah, I guess this would be the most likely result.

Maybe NEOS is too high and the ÖVP too low. FPÖ a bit too high and SPÖ a bit too low.

[Omega21]

Newest poll:



http://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/Hofburg-Wahl-Hofer-schon-auf-Platz-2/225612647

Seems we will be seeing a VdB - Hofer runoff..

[Tender Branson]

And they did some runoff scenarios too in which VdB beats Hofer by 58-42 and Griss by 56-44:

[Omega21]

In a runoff i think a lot of Khol voters will go Hofer and that most Griss and Spo voters go Vdb.

[Tender Branson]

In a runoff i think a lot of Khol voters will go Hofer and that most Griss and Spo voters go Vdb.

If Hofer manages to get into the runoff (which doesn't look unlikely), he should get a decent amount of votes from Khol-supporters as well as Griss- and Lugner-supporters.

Hofer only has 19% in the first round, but gets 42% in the runoff - which suggests that he gets an additional 23% from the pool of Griss/Khol/Lugner voters (together at 38%).

It means Hofer gets 61% of this pool, while 39% go to VdB (assuming there's almost no support for Hofer coming from SPÖ-voters, which is likely not the case).

If we expand the pool with SPÖ-voters, then there are 54% up for grabs in the runoff.

Hofer gets 23% of them, which means 43% of the total pool (Griss, Hundstorfer, Khol, Lugner).

In general, I think Hofer would perform best with Khol voters (maybe 60-70% of them), 40-60% of Griss voters, 20-30% of Hundstorfer voters and an unknown % of Lugner voters.

[Tender Branson]

Tomorrow, municipal elections will be held in Tyrol in 277 of 279 towns/cities (but not in the capital Innsbruck, which votes in 2018, and in a town of some 50 people - in which no voter wanted to run for office).

The elections are already won by the ÖVP (and their various "independent" lists), before the first votes are even cast.

That's because the ÖVP (and their lists) are on the ballot in each town/city, whereas even the SPÖ is only on the ballot in 98 towns, the FPÖ in 75 and the Greens in 45.

It is expected that the FPÖ does well (because they are benefitting from the migrant chaos and thousands of migrants being stuffed into mass quarters throughout Tyrolian towns). ÖVP and SPÖ will lose of course, the Greens might gain a bit from a low level.

But Cranberry can tell you more about it ...

[Tender Branson]

Last time, turnout was 73.3% - which is quite high for Tyrolian standards.

Also: The ÖVP defends 236/277 mayors tomorrow, the SPÖ 22, the FPÖ 1 and the remaining 18 mayors are "independents" close to the ÖVP.

490.000 people aged 16+ (incl. EU-citizens) are eligible to vote.

[Cranberry]

Basically, there is no point in holding elections anywhere in Tyrol safe for like five "bigger" (for Tyrolean standards) cities on the local level, at all; because the race anywhere but in those is all but a done deal. The ÖVP is just omipotent basically everywhwere. There are some very small pockets of heavily concentrated SPÖ support in four or five industrial towns in the east (the "Unterland" or "lower country"), and three towns in the west (the "Oberland" or "upper country") where many people working for the national railways settle. There is St. Jakob im Defreggental which has an FPÖ mayor because that mayor used to be the state party's leader and is supposedly somehow popular. The rest is black country through and through.

Gramais, as Tender mentioned, is not holding any elections at all, a commissioner from the state government will conduct business there, I guess (not that the many people of Austria's smallest municipality will need much of that); while there are numerous other towns, especially in the remote Reutte district, that will have just one list for the council and just one candidate for the mayor's office. It is quite hard to find enough people running for election in such small towns, that are actually no more than hamlets - there are 3 municipalities with less than 100 people and 9 with less than 300 in Reutte district alone - because the councils are required to have nine councillors at minimum. It somehow shows you the stupidity of Tyrol's local government structure when you have nine councillors plus one mayor represent 51 people, but then again, all of them will be from the ÖVP, so our state government will never even think about that.

[Tender Branson]

Basically, there is no point in holding elections anywhere in Tyrol safe for like five "bigger" (for Tyrolean standards) cities on the local level, at all; because the race anywhere but in those is all but a done deal. The ÖVP is just omipotent basically everywhwere. There are some very small pockets of heavily concentrated SPÖ support in four or five industrial towns in the east (the "Unterland" or "lower country"), and three towns in the west (the "Oberland" or "upper country") where many people working for the national railways settle. There is St. Jakob im Defreggental which has an FPÖ mayor because that mayor used to be the state party's leader and is supposedly somehow popular. The rest is black country through and through.

Gramais, as Tender mentioned, is not holding any elections at all, a commissioner from the state government will conduct business there, I guess (not that the many people of Austria's smallest municipality will need much of that); while there are numerous other towns, especially in the remote Reutte district, that will have just one list for the council and just one candidate for the mayor's office. It is quite hard to find enough people running for election in such small towns, that are actually no more than hamlets - there are 3 municipalities with less than 100 people and 9 with less than 300 in Reutte district alone - because the councils are required to have nine councillors at minimum. It somehow shows you the stupidity of Tyrol's local government structure when you have nine councillors plus one mayor represent 51 people, but then again, all of them will be from the ÖVP, so our state government will never even think about that.

1) There are 7 "big" cities in Tyrol with more than 10.000 people (+Innsbruck of course with over 130.000 people). And another 6 with more than 8.000 people, so I would classify these 13 as "the ones to watch" today. As for the other 264 towns: Who cares ?

2) Nope:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The mayor & city council will simply remain in office for another term.

[Tender Branson]

New developments in the Presidential race:

* Van der Bellen (Greens) said in an interview today that he would not swear in the FPÖ - even if they had an absolute majority after the next election.

* Griss (Indy) meanwhile said she would step down as President, if there's a government she didn't like (for example one that wants to exit the EU or has a problem with democratic institutions).

http://orf.at/#/stories/2326961

[Omega21]

New developments in the Presidential race:

* Van der Bellen (Greens) said in an interview today that he would not swear in the FPÖ - even if they had an absolute majority after the next election.

Very undemocratic, and then he calls the FPO "Nazis" even though he would not swear in a goverment which the Austrian people elected.

[Cranberry]

Basically, there is no point in holding elections anywhere in Tyrol safe for like five "bigger" (for Tyrolean standards) cities on the local level, at all; because the race anywhere but in those is all but a done deal. The ÖVP is just omipotent basically everywhwere. There are some very small pockets of heavily concentrated SPÖ support in four or five industrial towns in the east (the "Unterland" or "lower country"), and three towns in the west (the "Oberland" or "upper country") where many people working for the national railways settle. There is St. Jakob im Defreggental which has an FPÖ mayor because that mayor used to be the state party's leader and is supposedly somehow popular. The rest is black country through and through.

Gramais, as Tender mentioned, is not holding any elections at all, a commissioner from the state government will conduct business there, I guess (not that the many people of Austria's smallest municipality will need much of that); while there are numerous other towns, especially in the remote Reutte district, that will have just one list for the council and just one candidate for the mayor's office. It is quite hard to find enough people running for election in such small towns, that are actually no more than hamlets - there are 3 municipalities with less than 100 people and 9 with less than 300 in Reutte district alone - because the councils are required to have nine councillors at minimum. It somehow shows you the stupidity of Tyrol's local government structure when you have nine councillors plus one mayor represent 51 people, but then again, all of them will be from the ÖVP, so our state government will never even think about that.

1) There are 7 "big" cities in Tyrol with more than 10.000 people (+Innsbruck of course with over 130.000 people). And another 6 with more than 8.000 people, so I would classify these 13 as "the ones to watch" today. As for the other 264 towns: Who cares ?

Still, there is not much of a race in a number of those "bigger" cities - Imst, for example is strongly ÖVP, Telfs is somewhat between the official ÖVP candidate and an ÖVP-near independent incumbent mayor, Kufstein and Schwaz are held by ÖVP mayors and will probably continue to do so, and so on...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The mayor & city council will simply remain in office for another term.
[/quote]

Oh, okay, didn't know that. Still all the same to them, most probably.

[Tender Branson]

I'm basically only interested in the St. Johann results, because this is where my brother lives.

St. Johann has around 10.000 people and was recently in the news because the BMI (Ministry of Interior) wanted to settle 200-400 asylum seekers in the city in an army barracks near where my brother lives.

[Tender Branson]

Cranberry's small home town just reported its results.

Massive ÖVP win.

[Tender Branson]

Tyrol is now fully counted.

As expected, the ÖVP (+lists) remains the dominant force in the 277 towns.

The FPÖ did relatively well in the big cities, mostly doubling or tripling their percentages there from 7-8% to around 20-22% - like in Kufstein, Wörgl, Hall, St. Johann, Schwaz etc.

But they only managed to pick up 1 mayor, out of 277. Their incumbent mayor has to go into the runoff in 2 weeks.

It seems the SPÖ lost a bit and the Greens gained slightly.

Of course, this is hard to say because there's no statewide result (because Tyrol has an abnormally high amount of "independent" lists).

https://wahlen.tirol.gv.at/gemeinderats_und_buergermeisterwahlen_2016/index.html

https://wahlen.tirol.gv.at/gemeinderats_und_buergermeisterwahlen_2016/liste_statistik_auszaehlung_land_tirol.html

Turnout by town:

http://orf.at/wahl/tirol16/#analysis

[Tender Branson]

According to the TT newspaper, there are 30 new mayors and 23 runoffs in 2 weeks.

224 mayors were re-elected today (actually 225 incl. Gramais, which had no election -> see above).

[Tender Branson]

A rare poll out of Carinthia by SORA (which is the "exit pollster" in Austrian elections):

39% SPÖ (+2% compared with 2013 state election)
26% FPÖ (+9%)
14% ÖVP (n.c.)
13% Greens (+1%)
  5% NEOS (+5%)
  2% TS (-9%)
  1% BZÖ (-5%)

http://kurier.at/chronik/oesterreich/kleinparteien-fehlt-die-one-man-show/184.300.921

[Tender Branson]

NEOS endorses Irmgard Griss over VdB:

http://derstandard.at/2000032315513-1362108118731/Bundespraesidentenwahl-Neos-aeussern-klare-Praeferenz-fuer-Griss

[Tender Branson]

Presidential candidate Richard Lugner (our version of Trump, just without the racism and xenophobia) is luring people with free cinema tickets, so they sign one of the 6.000 petitions he needs to be on the ballot.

Of course, vote buying in the actual election is illegal - but the election law doesn't really say if the same is true for getting enough signatures to be on the ballot ...

Lugner said he's within the law and has consulted an attorney before he started the campaign. He also said that he's doing nothing other than what the main party machines are doing: They are also spending money to send out their activists to try and get people to sign ballot petitions.



http://derstandard.at/2000032128199/Kinogutschein-fuer-Lugner-Unterstuetzung-koennte-strafbar-sein

[Tender Branson]

Irmgard Griss (Indy) is the first presidential candidate to submit enough signatures to be on the ballot.

6.000 signatures were needed and she submitted 7.851 today (saying her campaign team will collect more and likely over 10.000)



http://derstandard.at/2000032499827/Griss-uebergibt-erforderliche-Unterstuetzungserklaerungen

This is significant, because Griss (a former Austrian Supreme Court President and judge) has no party machine behind her.

She also submitted them waaaay ahead of the March 18 deadline and also endorsed Hillary Clinton for President today.

I'm likely to vote for her in the Presidential election next month.

[Tender Branson]

According to political website neuwal.com, Norbert Hofer (FPÖ) is the second candidate that has collected more than the 6.000 signatures that are needed to be on the Presidential ballot.

[Tender Branson]

New Gallup/Ö24 poll (Presidential race, runoff scenarios and federal election):

[Tender Branson]

Roughly 6 weeks before the election, the ÖVP launches the first poster campaign for Khol:



"Experience is strength."

"In tough times: relying on the strengths of our country."

"Dr. Andreas Khol - Strengthening Austria."

[sasun]

This is going to be an interesting election. What explains the popularity of Alexander vdB ?

[Tender Branson]

This is going to be an interesting election. What explains the popularity of Alexander vdB ?

Yes, the closest/most competetive election since 1992 (incl. a potentially close runoff).

VdB is a good, forceful debater - slightly excentric - which makes him likeable beyond the Green Party base to many centrist ÖVP, SPÖ, NEOS-voters.

Also, the SPÖ has lost the young vote to the Greens and FPÖ and there are many of them in the urban, suburban areas who are going to vote for VdB over Hundstorfer (who's fighting with Khol for the retired folk).