Bremen "state" election (May 13, 2007)

[Tender Branson]

This is boring, just as 2008 will be:

Allthough there are 4 State elections in Germany next year (Bavaria, Hamburg, Hessen, Lower Saxony) and 2 in Austria (Tyrol and Lower Austria), in each of the 6 the Conservatives are favored.

The only question will be: Is the ÖVP able to keep the absolute majority in Tyrol and Lower Austria, which are conservative strongholds ?

The same can be applied to Bavaria, where the CSU will somewhere be between 50 and 60%.

In the city-state of Hamburg, contrary to Bremen, the CDU is way ahead of the SPD.

In Hessen, the CDU nearly got 50% in 2003, while the historically strong state SPD got trashed. Recent polls show a narrowing of the race, but the CDU for now has the advantage.

In Lower Saxony the same picture, the SPD got clobbered in 2003 in a SPD heartland and the CDU advantage isn´t gone yet.

So it will be quite a conservative year in 2008, at least in these 6 states.

[Tender Branson]

According to the Bremen Wahl-O-Mat I should have voted for the Greens. No surprise for me and a good showing by the Bremen Green Party today

[Tender Branson]

- A few statistics: 16.5% is the best result the Greens ever had in any German state election.

Arrggh, you beat the Tyrolian Greens by 1% and the Vienna Greens by 1.5% But the Tyrolian Greens will overtake you in next years state elections

[Tender Branson]

The same can be applied to Bavaria, where the CSU will somewhere be between 50 and 60%.

Polls have them right around the 50% mark... of course, by the time of the election, Stoiber will be gone, and the result depends on how well that asshole Beckstein settles in and on whether there'll be any major fallout after Seehofer inevitably loses the race for party chair to Erwin Huber. There definitely is a chance for the CSU to lose its absolute majority (mind you, I'm not optimistic - definitely an under 50% chance). They won't defend their current no. of seats, but then the last election went catastrophic for the SPD mostly for turnout differential reasons.

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The Hamburg SPD - just as used to governing as the Bremen one; I think there was a CDU-dominated government for four years in the 50s, but that was it until 2001 - is in catastrophic state.
They picked some relative unknown for state chairman after 2003 (one Mathias Petersen) who has managed to piss off the entire clique of SPD insiders/apparatchiks while making only a very minor, though net positive, impression on Hamburgers at large. He was challenged by his deputy for the nomination as head of the list, and there was a ballot of party members which ended with ballots stolen and both candidates withdrawing (Petersen, who apparently would have won the ballot easily enough, needed a couple days pressuring) and Michael Naumann, editor of Die Zeit and former federal under secretary for the arts, being catapulted in. Petersen remains party chairman. Hilarious.

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Roland Koch is phenomenally unpopular - phenomenally unpopular for a politician with a more than 50% chance of remaining in office, that is.
His challenger is Andrea Ypsilanti - a woman, pretty far left within the SPD, and quite a mouthful of a name (although she was born a simple Andrea Nöll, daughter of a Rüsselsheim auto worker. Married a Greek, hence the name.) So, two fairly polarizing figures. Should be good for better turnout, at least, which is bad news for the CDU, at least in terms of seat losses (once again, the last result is due to the fact that so many social democrats didn't bother to go and vote.)

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I guess so. I'm not even sure who the SPD will be running. After 2003, defeated state PM Sigmar Gabriel initially stayed on as leader of the opposition, but he's now federal minister of the environment (and doing a darn good job. Definitely my favorite member of the cabinet right now.)

Although I'm not sure if Lower Saxony can be called an "SPD heartland" - recent federal results notwithstanding. These include a large personal vote of Gerhard Schröder's. At the state level, Lower Saxony has had long periods of both SPD and CDU domination.

New polls out (difference to last state election results):

Bavaria:

CSU: 56% (-5)
SPD: 17% (-3)
Green: 9% (+1)
FDP: 6% (+3)

Below 5% threshold:

Left-Party: 3% (+3)
Free Voters: 3% (-1)
Others: 6%

Hamburg:

CDU: 41% (-6)
SPD: 29% (-1)
Greens: 16% (+4)
Left-Party: 6% (+6)

Below 5% threshold:

FDP: 4% (+1)
Others: 4%

Hessen:

CDU: 40% (-9)
SPD: 32% (+3)
Greens: 11% (+1)
FDP: 9% (+1)

Below 5% threshold:

Left-Party: 4% (+4)
Others: 4%

Lower Saxony:

CDU: 41% (-7)
SPD: 36% (+3)
Greens: 8% (-)
FDP: 8% (-)

Below 5% threshold:

Left-Party: 4% (+4)
Others: 3%

[Tender Branson]

You forgot Saarland, where the Left Party is polled at 13% (full Oskar power!).

Yeah, but they are not voting next year