2008 State Elections in Austria and Germany

[Tender Branson]

A new poll from Lower Austria shows that the governing center-right ÖVP will have to fight to retain its absolute majority:

ÖVP: 50%
SPÖ: 31%
FPÖ: 9%
Greens: 9%
BZÖ: 1%

Meanwhile, a new poll from Lower-Saxony shows that the Left Party is likely to enter the state parliament for the first time, crossing the 5% treshold. With a combined 51%, CDU+FDP would have the opportunity to continue their governing coalition:

CDU: 45%
SPD: 33%
Greens: 8%
FDP: 6%
Left Party: 5%

[Hash]

Using election.de's Mandate Calculator, and using their latest polls they show (they use Hare/Niemeyer in Hesse, d'Hondt in Lower Saxony)

Hesse:
CDU 50 (43%)
SPD 35 (30%)
Green 10 (9%)
FDP 9 (8%)
Die Linke 6 (5%)
Others 5%

Lower Saxony:
CDU 63 (45%)
SPD 46 (33%)
Green 11 (8%)
FDP 8 (6%)
Die Linke 7 (5%)
Others 3%

Hamburg:
CDU 54 (42%)
SPD 41 (32%)
Green 17 (13%)
Die Linke 9 (7%)
FDP 4%
Others 2%

Bavaria:
CDU 112 (54%)
SPD 47 (23%)
Green 21 (10%)
Others 6%
FDP 4%
Die Linke 3%

[Middle-aged Europe]

Hesse (FGW, 12/07)

CDU 40%
SPD 34%
GRÜNE 9%
FDP 7%
DIE LINKE 6%

No majority for either CDU/FDP or SPD/GRÜNE.


Lower Saxony (FGW, 12/07)

CDU 44%
SPD 34%
GRÜNE 7%
FDP 7%
DIE LINKE 4%

Majority for CDU/FDP.

[BenNebbich]

it's CSU in bavaria. small but important difference.

[Tender Branson]

Polling Update:

Hamburg:

CDU: 44%
SPD: 33%
Greens: 12%
Left Party: 5%
FDP: 3%
Others: 3%

Probably a Grand-Coalition CDU-SPD ?

Bavaria:

CSU: 56%
SPD: 17%
Greens: 9%
FDP: 4%
Left Party: 4%
Others: 10%

The CSU would keep it´s 2/3 majority ...

[Hash]

it's CSU in bavaria. small but important difference.

Oh sorry, slight error on my part. Thanks for noticing.

[BenNebbich]

Polling Update:

Bavaria:

CSU: 56%
SPD: 17%
Greens: 9%
FDP: 4%
Left Party: 4%
Others: 10%

The CSU would keep it´s 2/3 majority ...

depends of 'freie wähler#; kind of a independent party. maybe they get over 5%, so the CSU must be satisfied with 50%+.

[minionofmidas]

Hesse (FGW, 12/07)

CDU 40%
SPD 34%
GRÜNE 9%
FDP 7%
DIE LINKE 6%

No majority for either CDU/FDP or SPD/GRÜNE.

I'll go out on a limb and predict the result right now:

CDU 40.5%
SPD 36%
Grüne 8%
FDP 6%
Linke 6%

[BenNebbich]

wishful thinking.

i think koch will start a short and hard campaign and will lead his cdu up to 44%.

that should be enough with the helpful liberals to be successful.

B.N.

[Tender Branson]

Hesse (FGW, 12/07)

CDU 40%
SPD 34%
GRÜNE 9%
FDP 7%
DIE LINKE 6%

No majority for either CDU/FDP or SPD/GRÜNE.

I'll go out on a limb and predict the result right now:

CDU 40.5%
SPD 36%
Grüne 8%
FDP 6%
Linke 6%

Already any clue for which party you´ll vote ?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hesse (FGW, 12/07)

CDU 40%
SPD 34%
GRÜNE 9%
FDP 7%
DIE LINKE 6%

No majority for either CDU/FDP or SPD/GRÜNE.

I'll go out on a limb and predict the result right now:

CDU 40.5%
SPD 36%
Grüne 8%
FDP 6%
Linke 6%

Already any clue for which party you´ll vote ?

He will obviously vote CDU as not only is he a dedicated supporter of that party, he is also a big fan of Roland Koch.

[Tender Branson]

Hesse (FGW, 12/07)

CDU 40%
SPD 34%
GRÜNE 9%
FDP 7%
DIE LINKE 6%

No majority for either CDU/FDP or SPD/GRÜNE.

I'll go out on a limb and predict the result right now:

CDU 40.5%
SPD 36%
Grüne 8%
FDP 6%
Linke 6%

Already any clue for which party you´ll vote ?

He will obviously vote CDU as not only is he a dedicated supporter of that party, he is also a big fan of Roland Koch.

I know he won´t vote for CDU/FDP/Republicans/NPD ...

The question is if he´ll vote for the Greens or the Left Party, or vote strategically for the Social Democrats if polls show they can close the gap with the CDU shortly before Election Day.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Hesse (FGW, 12/07)

CDU 40%
SPD 34%
GRÜNE 9%
FDP 7%
DIE LINKE 6%

No majority for either CDU/FDP or SPD/GRÜNE.

I'll go out on a limb and predict the result right now:

CDU 40.5%
SPD 36%
Grüne 8%
FDP 6%
Linke 6%

Already any clue for which party you´ll vote ?

He will obviously vote CDU as not only is he a dedicated supporter of that party, he is also a big fan of Roland Koch.

I know he won´t vote for CDU/FDP/Republicans/NPD ...

The question is if he´ll vote for the Greens or the Left Party, or vote strategically for the Social Democrats if polls show they can close the gap with the CDU shortly before Election Day.

I'll put my money on Left Party here.

[minionofmidas]

That is correct, as of today. Given my frustrations with the Hessian and Frankfurt Greens (and the problems with the Hessian Left Party...) the best way for the Greens to regain my vote would probably be to fall below the Left in polls, or for both to poll just around the threshold. One vote more or less doesn't mean much, after all, unless it's the vote that makes the threshold.
And the constituency vote for the Social Democrat because my constituency Christian Democrat is someone I'd never heard of before who says this election is about defending Freedom against the Left Camp (direct quote) and the Social Democrat has been a pretty good city councillor for the past 10 years and is Turkish. And of course because any other vote is wasted anyways. The Green candidate is pretty good as well (and Iranian, though married to a german guy. No, she doesn't wear a headscarf. In case you were wondering.) but the Left candidate is completely unelectable - ex Linksruck (German branch of the SWP basically. Has merged into the Left Party recently, following the doctrine of Deep Entrism.)

wishful thinking.

i think koch will start a short and hard campaign and will lead his cdu up to 44%.

that should be enough with the helpful liberals to be successful.

B.N.

Perhaps, except that Koch at 44 means not much more than 5 for the FDP, and that Koch's "short and hard campaign" is absolutely nowhere to be seen on the ground. This election is going to be nowhere near 2003. It might be similar to 99, 95, 91 and 87 though... ie ending up very very close with neither side campaigning impressively. It's tradition for Hessian elections to go down to the wire...
Compare, incidentally, candidate head-to-heads, for what they're worth. That same poll has Koch 45 - Ypsilanti 32... and while that doesn't sound impressive, it's actually the best a challenger has looked in these head to heads in Hesse at this point since 1987.

[Middle-aged Europe]

And the constituency vote for the Social Democrat because my constituency Christian Democrat is someone I'd never heard of before who says this election is about defending Freedom against the Left Camp (direct quote)...

Ah, one of those "Freiheit statt Sozialismus!" guys??

[BenNebbich]

there is no reason for hessia to change government.

ypsilanti is not attractive in a political way.

red-green has lost its charme, red-red-green has no charme.

i think there will be a campaign coming up against 'the left' and it will appeal to the people and be successful.

sorry about that.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Another Hamburg poll (Emnid, 12/08)

CDU 41%
SPD 31%
GRÜNE 12%
DIE LINKE 8%
FDP 5%

No majority for either CDU/FDP or SPD/GRÜNE.

[minionofmidas]

there is no reason for hessia to change government.

Not sure where to begin here, so I'll just leave that out, ok?

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Not very much, no. More so than Walter though (the SPD rightie from the Wetterau who ran against her for the nomination, and almost won. And who looks and sounds like he should be in the FDP - by which I'm not saying he actually should be, of course). More than Koch, actually, who isn't either and has never tried to pretend to be. And spades more than Gerhard Bökel... unfortunately, that goes for about 75 million people in Germany.

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It's been underways since 2005. Mostly because the race hasn't really moved much anywhere since 2005. It will be stepped up, obviously... you're completely mistaken about the point of such campaigns, though. The point is not to "appeal to the people" but to appeal to the 45% of the population that might conceivably vote for you, in the hopes that they all turn out while the other side doesn't. ... it works only if the other side has nothing to counter it.
And Koch is indeed good at these things ... but he also got pig lucky twice. In 99 the Greens were in complete disarray, in 2003 it was the SPD.

[BenNebbich]

well i think voters will find koch more attractive than ypsilanti.

and however he will govern four (or five?) more years.

the political left in germany is destroyed. they are down. the spd is needed as a junior-partner in big coalition. all their strongholds are now under cdu government.

the spd personal is exhausted. they lost too many of their leading personal (engholm, lafontaine, schröder, scharping, eichel...)

it's ok to think that the cdu is worse and less attractive. but nethertheless they win the elections.

i predict today for the next federal election:

- no more spd in the government
- overwhelming victory of cdu/csu/fdp

it's not the point that i wish that outcom, but to be realistic there is no other possibility.

[minionofmidas]

Okay then, explain the last two Bundestag elections' outcomes. Explain the current polls. Explain the Left Party's popularity.

The CDU has only one way to win elections left... turnout, turnout, turnout. (I am of course exempting the traditional strongholds here.) Depressed turnout, to be precise. (And still getting their core supporters to the polls... that part matters, too.) Of course, calling that "only one way" when it's so easy - when it's being made so easy for them - is somewhat specious. It doesn't change the basic fact that you're living in a country with a left wing structural majority. And have been since about 1992.

and however he will govern four (or five?) more years.

It's five.

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No contest on this one... no member of the Eichel cabinets is playing any role in politics anymore (will any be left in the Landtag after January? I'd have to check.), that says a lot I guess.
I don't think Ypsilanti is an outstanding candidate. Far from it. But I know what catastrophic SPD campaigns look like - Hessen 03, Frankfurt city council 06, Frankfurt mayoral 07 - and what normal to bad SPD campaigns look like - Bundestag 05 - and what the results to expect after either type of campaign look like. And this one is a normal to bad SPD campaign.

[minionofmidas]

Just in case this basic fact has gotten lost - I'm NOT ruling out that Koch will pull out another close win. Far from it.

I'm also not sure why everyone believes that a majority for Red-Red-Green means such a government. A toleration or even a CDU led Grand Coalition are both more realistic. After all, there's the strong right wing of the Hessian SPD to think of. Which gets me to the interesting question - who will be the next CDU state PM of Hesse? For it's hard - but not impossible - to picture the SPD - even its right wing - getting into bed with the man most of their voters see as basically the Devil Reincarnate. And Koch has never governed, as most state CDU's do, with a sort of intra party coalition, surrounding himself entirely with rightie yes men (and women) instead, and has no heir apparent. (Well, Jung maybe, but I'm not sure he'd be acceptable to the state SPD either. After all, he too was implicated in the Spendensumpf, and actually had to resign to save his master's head back then.) The main reason Angela Merkel survived her 2005 defeat (along with Schröder's ego trip) was that there were too many heirs apparent - the first out of the breach would have certainly lost all chances of succeeding her himself.

[Middle-aged Europe]

New Hamburg poll (TNS Infratest, 12/11)

CDU 40%
SPD 33%
GRÜNE 13%
DIE LINKE 7%
FDP 3%

No majority for either CDU/FDP or SPD/GRÜNE (the latter coalition comes very close though: according to the seat calculator on election.de, SPD and Greens would be one seat short of a majority).

[minionofmidas]

This is election.de (site Old Europe seems to love)'s current prediction of direct seats in Hesse. Dark blue is safe CDU, light blue likely CDU, light red likely SPD, dark red safe SPD. (Actually, you could also say that either shade of blue is CDU hold, light red is SPD gain, and dark red is SPD hold. )
I have some problems with this prognosis. Maybe they have special access to internals showing the CDU doing worse in the city of Frankfurt than outside it or something, but there's several seats shown as "safe CDU" that you'd expect to fall before three of the four "likely CDU" Frankfurt seats. Maybe they're just expecting red-green vote splitting to reach the kind of levels it had in recent Bundestag elections, considering it artificially deflated in the last two statewides - a case for that claim can certainly be made. (as there's been a massive increase in vote splitting in all elections since 1995) Doesn't really explain how Sachsenhausen is not safe for the CDU on a statewiede poll lead of 6-13 percent (they're taking all recent polls into account). Vogelsberg *safe* CDU?

[Middle-aged Europe]

This is election.de (site Old Europe seems to love)'s

It's more like a love-hate relationship.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This is election.de (site Old Europe seems to love)'s current prediction of direct seats in Hesse. Dark blue is safe CDU, light blue likely CDU, light red likely SPD, dark red safe SPD. (Actually, you could also say that either shade of blue is CDU hold, light red is SPD gain, and dark red is SPD hold. )
I have some problems with this prognosis. Maybe they have special access to internals showing the CDU doing worse in the city of Frankfurt than outside it or something, but there's several seats shown as "safe CDU" that you'd expect to fall before three of the four "likely CDU" Frankfurt seats. Maybe they're just expecting red-green vote splitting to reach the kind of levels it had in recent Bundestag elections, considering it artificially deflated in the last two statewides - a case for that claim can certainly be made. (as there's been a massive increase in vote splitting in all elections since 1995) Doesn't really explain how Sachsenhausen is not safe for the CDU on a statewiede poll lead of 6-13 percent (they're taking all recent polls into account). Vogelsberg *safe* CDU?

Is there a link with results from last time?