European Parliament Election: May 23-26, 2019

[Beezer]

Latest German polls may indicate a slight AfD uptick.

[Diouf]

Two new Danish polls

Epinion for DR

Social Democrats 27.4% 4 seats
SPP 8.5% 1 seat

Liberals 19.8% 4 seats
Conservatives 4.1% 0 seats
Liberal Alliance 2.9% 0 seats

People's Movement against the EU 6.9% 1 seats
Red-Green Alliance 6.4% 1 seat

Social Liberals 8.3% 1 seats (2 if UK leaves)
Alternative 3.8% 0 seats

DPP 11.9% 1 seat

Norstat for Jyllands-Posten & Altinget

Social Democrats 27.7% 4 seats
SPP 7.2% 1 seat

Liberals 18.1% 3 seats (4 seats if UK leave)
Conservatives 3.9% 0 seats
Liberal Alliance 3.5% 0 seats

Red-Green Alliance 7.3% 1 seat
People's Movement against EU 6.8% 1 seat

DPP 13.4% 2 seats

Social Liberals 8.6% 1 seat
Alternative 3.4% 0 seats

[Tender Branson]

The FPÖ is out with their last (?) poster campaign, this time feat. Voldemort (= Vilimsky) and Strache:

"Austria needs you. Now more than ever before [X] FPÖ. Only voting is effective."

The FPÖ already used the "Austria needs you." line on the Norbert Hofer posters, so it's pretty odd that he's not on there as well.

BTW: tomorrow at noon, the biggest media poll so far will be released (Unique Research for the 3 media organisations "Profil" magazine, "Heute" newspaper and ATV. The sample will be 2400 people.)

[Tender Branson]

From what I have seen driving around recently, the FPÖ has an enormous amount of posters up in my district. The 2nd party is the ÖVP, which has much more posters of Karoline Edtstadler up compared with Othmar Karas (Edtstadler is from Salzburg, so that makes sense). I have seen ca. 50 different FPÖ posters alone in the Zell am See area and some 30 from the ÖVP.

SPÖ and Greens are virtually without any posters around here for now and there are only some NEOS posters.

That is no surprise though, because FPÖ and ÖVP are flush with cash from their recent victories and by increased public party financing as a result of it. SPÖ and Greens have a problematic fiscal situation, so they focus their poster campaign on the big cities.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Hilarious expectations management from the Conservatives, who have decided to not bother even attempting a campaign or provide funding for their candidates because it would be embarrassing to lose after trying: they are musing they might come behind the Greens. This might be an interesting experiment though: how important are cadre really? Because you can bet no Tory activist is bothering with this one.

[Former President tack50]

Hilarious expectations management from the Conservatives, who have decided to not bother even attempting a campaign or provide funding for their candidates because it would be embarrassing to lose after trying: they are musing they might come behind the Greens. This might be an interesting experiment though: how important are cadre really? Because you can bet no Tory activist is bothering with this one.

RIP Conservative and Unionist Party (1834-2019).

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Hilarious expectations management from the Conservatives, who have decided to not bother even attempting a campaign or provide funding for their candidates because it would be embarrassing to lose after trying: they are musing they might come behind the Greens. This might be an interesting experiment though: how important are cadre really? Because you can bet no Tory activist is bothering with this one.

RIP Conservative and Unionist Party (1834-2019).

Nah, unless they suffer actual real parliamentary defections to Brexit they're safe as the leading force of the British right.

[CumbrianLefty]

Hilarious expectations management from the Conservatives, who have decided to not bother even attempting a campaign or provide funding for their candidates because it would be embarrassing to lose after trying: they are musing they might come behind the Greens. This might be an interesting experiment though: how important are cadre really? Because you can bet no Tory activist is bothering with this one.

RIP Conservative and Unionist Party (1834-2019).

Nah, Rasputin was easy to kill off in comparison.

Though be in no doubt, what is currently going on is most definitely not "normal".

[DaWN]

Hilarious expectations management from the Conservatives, who have decided to not bother even attempting a campaign or provide funding for their candidates because it would be embarrassing to lose after trying: they are musing they might come behind the Greens. This might be an interesting experiment though: how important are cadre really? Because you can bet no Tory activist is bothering with this one.

RIP Conservative and Unionist Party (1834-2019).

Nah, Rasputin was easy to kill off in comparison.

Though be in no doubt, what is currently going on is most definitely not "normal".

Yeah, the Conservative Party might be useless at pretty much everything else it tries to do, but self-preservation is its one great talent.

(Also, it's pretty easy to see the party rebounding under a Corbyn government for instance, casting off the Cameron and May legacies and probably ending up back in government after a single term.)

[Tender Branson]

New Austria EU poll (Unique Research for ATV, Heute and Profil media):



Turnout: 49% (+4)

[DavidB.]

The Dutch SP have come up with an ad that unusually harshly criticizes Frans Timmermans. It is really one big personal attack on Timmermans, portrayed as "Hans Brusselmans" who is some sort of elitist cartoon villain who hates ordinary people, throws referendum results in a fire and exhibits six out of the seven cardinal sins in pretty gross ways. The SP received a massive load of criticism for it, to which party chairman Ron Meyer responded that someone who attempts to become the next leader of the European Commission should be able to withstand a parody.

However, apart from bashing Timmermans the video doesn't offer a clear alternative vision on behalf of the SP (except for "no superstate"). I can imagine the video helping both the PvdA and the SP. I can also imagine it only helping the PvdA, as GL and D66 voters are drawn towards Timmermans in the first place.

Otherwise not much of a campaign going on yet. Here's the FVD ad: "Europe at a crossroads."

[Tender Branson]

Untitled ÖVP ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svXvdTkzfrw

SPÖ ad "A Europe for the People, not big corporations":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4ZdPDzwoTQ

Green Party ad "Back to the roots. Back to the Greens":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUJ-FXIP8F8

NEOS ad "Home(land)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdtDOGDGmjA

NEOS mobilisation ad "Are you going to let THOSE PEOPLE decide your future ?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe17mnAGhTs

(pictured are stereotypical FPÖ-voters who arrogantly say it's best to not vote, or that their goals have been achieved with ÖVP-FPÖ etc.)

... which is pretty funny, because the FPÖ is out with an ad (watched by almost 1 million people already) that is titled: "If you are not voting this time, others will vote for asylum chaos and more EU centralisation."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKbl5Oyodus

[Diouf]

Save Romania Union (USR) will join ALDE. I guess their alliance partner, PLUS, could join them as well. Right now, the alliance is set to win 7-8 seats.

https://twitter.com/DanBarnaUSR/status/1125372656533024768

[CumbrianLefty]

(Also, it's pretty easy to see the party rebounding under a Corbyn government for instance, casting off the Cameron and May legacies and probably ending up back in government after a single term.)

Though I do think that may be going a bit far the other way, they have serious long term issues.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As an organisational and institutional level both major British parties are in a dreadful state, much worse even than they look at first glance. Which means longer term predictions of any sort a waste of time. These particular absurd elections will presumably show that off embarrassingly clearly, though doubtless many analysts will draw the wrong conclusions from that.

Anyway, whenever there's a situation like this it's natural to assume that something must snap and everything must change in some way, because surely it must? And it might. But entirely dysfunctional party systems can survive (as in: without righting themselves either) for a surprisingly long term out of sheer inertia sometimes.

[DavidB.]

Two new Danish polls

Epinion for DR

Social Democrats 27.4% 4 seats
SPP 8.5% 1 seat

Liberals 19.8% 4 seats
Conservatives 4.1% 0 seats
Liberal Alliance 2.9% 0 seats

People's Movement against the EU 6.9% 1 seats
Red-Green Alliance 6.4% 1 seat

Social Liberals 8.3% 1 seats (2 if UK leaves)
Alternative 3.8% 0 seats

DPP 11.9% 1 seat

How is DF at 1 seat with 12% and V at 4 with less than 20%? Would be a disastrous performance for DF...

[DavidB.]

Apparently a number of eurofederalist social liberals are currently meeting in Strasbourg to discuss group formation after the EP election. The parties would be French LREM, Italian PD, Romanian USR, Dutch D66 and VVD, Hungarian Momentum, Belgian MR and Open VLD, Spanish Cs and three others. German FDP aren't present. I suppose we can expect Danish RV and Austrian NEOS to join this group, but the situation may be more interesting for Danish V and Finnish KESK (guess they would join Macron's thing in the end...).

Czech ANO was explicitly not invited and may have to look for a new group if the right-wing parties within ALDE don't establish their own parliamentary group. Wonder which group would welcome them: EPP would be the most likely bet but their Christian Democrats are already in. ECR would perhaps fit them too, but Czech ODS are in there, Jan Zahradil from the ODS is ECR's Spitzenkandidat and as a founding member ODS carry quite some weight within ECR even though their status as a major Czech party has been eroded.

[rc18]

This may or may not be an outlier, but...



The Brexit Party ahead of Labour and the Conservatives combined.

[Diouf]

Two new Danish polls

Epinion for DR

Social Democrats 27.4% 4 seats
SPP 8.5% 1 seat

Liberals 19.8% 4 seats
Conservatives 4.1% 0 seats
Liberal Alliance 2.9% 0 seats

People's Movement against the EU 6.9% 1 seats
Red-Green Alliance 6.4% 1 seat

Social Liberals 8.3% 1 seats (2 if UK leaves)
Alternative 3.8% 0 seats

DPP 11.9% 1 seat

How is DF at 1 seat with 12% and V at 4 with less than 20%? Would be a disastrous performance for DF...

Government Alliance is at 26.8%. DPP is at 11.9%.
The electoral system is standard D'Hondt (divisors 1, 2, 3 etc.).
So once the government alliance has received its third seat, its D'hondt coefficient is 6.7. Once the DPP has received its first seat, its D'hondt coefficient is 5.95. So the government alliance is further ahead in the queue to get another seat.

Inside the government alliance, the Liberals gets the fourth seat on a D'Hondt coefficient of 4.95, while the closest competitor, Conservatives, are at 4.1

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This may or may not be an outlier, but...

All European Elections polls for GB are, in essence, outliers. Might as well play with dice.

[CumbrianLefty]

This may or may not be an outlier, but...

All European Elections polls for GB are, in essence, outliers. Might as well play with dice.

Not least of the questions is what turnout they are projecting.

[jaichind]

This may or may not be an outlier, but...



The Brexit Party ahead of Labour and the Conservatives combined.

Good branding in terms of name.  There is no ambiguity on what the party stands for.

[CumbrianLefty]

The two Euro election polls tonight both have the Tories in 4th place (behind LibDems)

Now, 3rd place for Labour in these elections back in 2009 was described as a humiliation at the time - and not totally unfairly. This time the Tories are (as an apparently deliberate act) running no campaign to speak of, so who knows how low they could go?

[Mike88]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1127349819972968448

Well... that makes sense.

[Tender Branson]

Tonight, the first of 4 elephant debates between the 6 frontrunners will take place on PULS 4 TV:



Katerina Anastasiou (Communist Party) is not invited to the debates, as the KPÖ is not represented in the national or EU parliament.

Pollster OGM will do a live debate survey of who won and who did best on certain topics.