2013 Elections in Germany

[minionofmidas]

Fulda is not like everywhere else, is it. Is the hyper CDU area just east of Marburg also a Catholic enclave?

Of course! (The post-45 newtownish/industrial growth of Stadtallendorf is actually obscuring its size a little. Without that the three eastern Marburg district municipalities would probably all be voting like the southwesternmost of them.)

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Lasting ghost. Or perhaps rather - quite credibly - an old ghost with some recently renewed life energy in its veins.

[Tender Branson]

Apparently, ca. 60% of SPD-members polled by Forsa are in favour of a Grand Coalition.

[Tender Branson]

First ZDF poll after the election:

43% CDU/CSU (+1.5)
26% SPD (+0.3)
10% Left (+1.4)
  7% Greens (-1.4)
  5% AfD (+0.3)
  3% FDP [-1.8]
  6% Others

[ERvND]

Apparently, ca. 60% of SPD-members polled by Forsa are in favour of a Grand Coalition.

I understand 65% are against it.

[Franknburger]

Asides, the more I look at the AfD map, the more I think that they have been able to especially take over small-scale tourism operators from the FDP. If you are making your living from summer tourism along the Baltic Sea coast, you might be anything but unhappy about Greece and other Mediterranean countries possibly leaving the Eurozone. In Saxony-Anhalt, OTOH, summer tourism hardly plays a role.

Something wrong with that theory:
http://www.statistik-hessen.de/b2013/S6350222.htm

I don't fully get your point. 3.4% AfD isn't particularly high, but the Sauerland is also not competing with the Mediterranean for beach tourists.
In any case, I now tend to think that post WW II refugees offer a more plausible explanation for elevated AfD vote shares, especially after realising that Mecklenburg-Vorpommern also has absorbed a substantial number of refugees. That does not exclude the possibility that those refugees (and their children) - being less rooted in the countryside - are overrepresented among small-scale tourism service providers.

Below two state maps on refugee shares in 1950 (the only ones I could find on the internet, unfortunately).  Note that quite a lot moved on after 1950. In 1960, e.g. the number of refugees in Hamburg had almost doubled compared to 1950.

 



EDIT: Came across some 1970 census data on displaced persons (DP), which are a bit more relevant to current elections. In West Germany, their number increased by some 1.62 million from 1950. Since some DPs should have died between 1950 and 1970, this points at at least some 1.9 - 2 million DPs, or 50% of the 1950 DPs in East Germany, that migrated onwards to the West between 1950 and 1961.

These are the 1970 DP shares in the West German states' total population (change from 1950 in brackets:
1.   Lower Saxony                    22.7 (-4.6)
2.   Schleswig-Holstein             22.5 (-9.7)
3.   Hessen                             18.1 (+1.6)
4.   Bavaria                             18.0 (-3.1)
5.   Baden-Würtemberg           17.3 (+3.9)
6.   Bremen                            16.0 (+7.4)
7.   NRW                                14.9 (+4.8 )
8.   Hamburg                          13.1 (+5.9)
9.   West Berlin                       10.1 (+3.2)
10. Rheinland-Pfalz                   8.4 (+3.
11. Saarland                            3.8 (n/a, under French administration in 1950)

[Leftbehind]

First ZDF poll after the election:

43% CDU/CSU (+1.5)
26% SPD (+0.3)
10% Left (+1.4)
  7% Greens (-1.4)
  5% AfD (+0.3)
  3% FDP [-1.8]
  6% Others

LOOOL. First time that polling organisation (Forschungsgruppe Wahlen?) have had Left in double figures since 2009. Greens demise carries on unabated - half what they were polling just last month.

[DL]

First ZDF poll after the election:

43% CDU/CSU (+1.5)
26% SPD (+0.3)
10% Left (+1.4)
  7% Greens (-1.4)
  5% AfD (+0.3)
  3% FDP [-1.8]
  6% Others

One important thing about this poll is that it shows that a second election would not necessarily give Merkel the absolute majority she now lacks - in fact it could make things worse for her since AfD would likely cross the 5% barrier

[minionofmidas]

Asides, the more I look at the AfD map, the more I think that they have been able to especially take over small-scale tourism operators from the FDP. If you are making your living from summer tourism along the Baltic Sea coast, you might be anything but unhappy about Greece and other Mediterranean countries possibly leaving the Eurozone. In Saxony-Anhalt, OTOH, summer tourism hardly plays a role.

Something wrong with that theory:
http://www.statistik-hessen.de/b2013/S6350222.htm

I don't fully get your point. 3.4% AfD isn't particularly high, but the Sauerland is also not competing with the Mediterranean for beach tourists.

In the case of Willingen... certainly not less so than anywhere near the Black Forest. At least by the image of it. It's very much a domestic tourism kind of place... and look how the FDP held up.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Apparently, ca. 60% of SPD-members polled by Forsa are in favour of a Grand Coalition.

I understand 65% are against it.

Those are the SPD members. The SPD voters support it though.

[palandio]

On the refugee/expellee issue: In Bavaria there are some post-WWII new towns that were founded by refugees and at least initially had a very high share of refugees. These patterns are now blurred a bit by Spätaussiedler and other people that have found affordable housing there. Nevertheless it may be worth to take a look at them (at first I always state the result for the Kreis level, then that of the town)

Stadt Kaufbeuren (voting age pop. 31405; voters 19628; turnout 62.50%; vote by mail 6617)
CSU 51.14%; SPD 17.48%; Grüne 8.13%; FDP 4.92%; AfD 4.81%; Linke 4.37%
Neugablonz (part of St. Kaufbeuren; voting age pop. 9376; voters 3657 [sadly not including vote by mail])
CSU 53.51%; SPD 17.37%; Grüne 4.31%; FDP 3.79%; AfD 5.56%; Linke 5.89%

Kreis Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen (voting age pop. 90819; voters 65754; turnout 72.40%)
CSU 53.41%; SPD 14.38%; Grüne 8.26%; FDP 5.52%; AfD 5.56%; Linke 2.84%
Geretsried (part of Kr. Bad Tölz-W.; voting age pop.17006; voters 11002; turnout 64.49%)
CSU 50.83%; SPD 18.17%; Grüne 7.01%; FDP 4.89%; AfD 5.29%; Linke 3.84%

Kreis Traunstein (voting age pop. 131873; voters 91516; turnout 69.40%)
CSU 56.76%; SPD 15.01%; Grüne 9.08%; FDP 4.39%; AfD 3.06%; Linke 3.04%
Traunreut (part of Kr. Traunstein; voting age pop. 15004; voters 8766; turnout 58.42%)
CSU 56.27%; SPD 17.22%; Grüne 7.25%; FDP 4.12%; AfD 2.61%; Linke 4.33%

Kreis Mühldorf (voting age pop. 84331; voters 56608; turnout 67.1%)
CSU 59.4%; SPD 13.9%; Grüne 5.8%; FDP 4.0%; AfD 4.1%; Linke 2.8%
Waldkraiburg (part of Kr. Mühldorf; voting age pop. 16.935; voters 9669; turnout 57.09%)
CSU 57.5%; SPD 18.0%; Grüne 3.6%; FDP 3.9%; AfD 4.9%; Linke 3.4%

Kreis Regensburg (voting age pop. 145691; voters 103510; turnout 71.05%)
CSU 52.27%; SPD 18,20%; Grüne 6.58%; FDP 4.13%; AfD 4.02%; Linke 3.10%
Neutraubling (part. of Kr. Regensburg; voting age pop. 9260; voters 5582; turnout 60.28%)
CSU 50.77%; SPD 21.11%; Grüne 5.49%; FDP 4.91%; AfD 4.40%; Linke 3.86%


Observations:
- CSU share often slightly lower than in their rural surrounding, but higher than in other towns of similar size
- SPD share higher than in their rural surrounding, but similar to other town of similar size
- Grüne share very low
- FDP varies, maybe a bit low for towns of that size
- Linke stronger than in their rural surrounding, but normal for towns of that size
- Finally the AfD share. I would really have expected that some pattern would show up here, but this is rather disappointing... Maybe we could save the argument if we differentiate a bit. For example in the town of Bruckmühl (Kreis Rosenheim) the AfD share (6.39%) is the highest of the Kreis. Bruckmühl has many residential areas that were built a bit later than the typical post-WWII new towns. These residential areas also had a high share of refugees, but were less urban isles. Maybe it's these refugees and the milieu they established that is now a bit AfD leaning?

[ERvND]

As a descendant of Sudeten Germans, I am very interested in this topic; I also hold the opinion that the history of eastern expulsion and western integration are still relevant today.

On the other hand, most of the refugee related voting patterns you presented here are not very convincing to me. Sure, there are some regions where you can see a connection, but then there are (possibly even more) areas where you'll find nothing.

The example of the refugee towns in Bavaria is particulary striking: If there is a pattern anywhere, it should be found in these places. But even though paladino tries to "save the argument", I think we have to admit that there is simply no pattern.

Maybe the expellees (and, most of all, their descendants, as only they matter numerically) have assimilated themselves to a degree that their voting (and living) patterns are no longer distinguishable from their environment.

[palandio]

[palandio]

@ERvND: I think that there might still be distiguishable features in the voting pattern of expellees and there descendants, though more complex than "expellees = AfD", "expellees = CDU", "expellees = SPD" etc.

The Sudeten Germans have been a good example for that in the past. On the one hand their is a clear right-wing tradition (Henlein's party, Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft [particularly Witikobund]). Additionally in the late 1960s NPD surge some NPD strongholds were refugee towns. Then they are mainly Catholics which would imply a CDU/CSU tendency. But there among Sudeten Germans there is also a stronger Social Democratic tradition than among other refugees (Seliger, Jaksch etc.) and in rural Bavaria they were probably more SPD leaning than the rest of the voters.

You are right that the statistics from the refugee towns don't show any AfD tendency. When driving further conclusions they should be interpreted carefully. The growth of these towns has continued for several decades. Additionally they have a high Spätaussiedler percentage that probably causes low turnout and a relatively high CSU share.

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, there's a fistful such places in Hesse as well. I checked one earlier today that I could think of off the top of my head - Harb, in Nidda municipality, and at 6.7% AfD it was well above the federal average but well below some of the other small villages annexed to Nidda town... It looks like at the micro level, a lot of the AfD map is quite literally a random distribution, weird little spikes of support. Which is not actually all that surprising in an all-new party fitting no historical alignment: there are groups more likely to vote for that party, but there's no guarantee these people actually did. Whether you expected AfD to poll "in excess of seven percent" (their mantra) or to be a non-show, after all, affects your vote and is influenced very much by who you've spoken to, whether you know any open AfD supporters etc.

[Franknburger]

Did the same kind of checking in a traditional FDP stronghold, namely Scharbeutz. Located on the Baltic Sea, it is a traditional lower middle-class tourism resort but, aside from the seaside, also includes quite some hinterland, partly very agricultural, partly also mildly touristic (Großer & Kleiner Pünitzer See).

Overall, the FDP went down from 21.7% to 8.7% (-60%); AfD achieved 5.1%. The AfD's best result was in the village of Wulfsdorf (115 voters), AfD 8.0%, FDP 7.1%). The AfD received no vote at all in the village of Schulendorf (37 voters, FDP 11.4%). 2.5 km apart, same socio-demographics, very different result - that's the kind of unsystematic electoral micro cosmos Lewis has been pointing out.
Aside from that, AfD shares tended to be higher along the seaside, lower in the Hinterland, and quite low in vote-by-mail. The FDP, OTOH, over performed in vote-by-mail (11%), but was otherwise also a bit stronger along the coast than in the hinterland, though variation is not that large.
 

[minionofmidas]

Aside from that, AfD shares tended to be higher along the seaside, lower in the Hinterland, and quite low in vote-by-mail. The FDP, OTOH, over performed in vote-by-mail (11%), but was otherwise also a bit stronger along the coast than in the hinterland, though variation is not that large.
 

Whether that patterns holds elsewhere it's worth looking into. The FDP, as well as the CDU, tends to overperform in postals and the SPD and Left (at least in the West) underperform as do nazis, with the Greens mixed - the weaker they do overall, ie the more they contract towards a core Green rather than Redgreen vote, the relatively better they do in postals.
But if the FDP overperformed really crassly in postal votes and the AfD underperformed, it may be evidence of a crucial lastminute swing that was just rightsized to doom them both.

[palandio]

[minionofmidas]

Thanks, that's a great map!

[Famous Mortimer]

So they lost almost half their votes in Saarland.

[minionofmidas]

It does mean a very minor edit is needed on some maps though.

No; CDU guy has won after the full recount.

[palandio]

Our Bundeswahlleiter has similar tables on his website:
http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/de/bundestagswahlen/BTW_BUND_13/veroeffentlichungen/ergebnisse/
Sadly I found these tables only after I made the maps. His numbers are slightly different mainly because he calculates
[2013 absolute number of LINKE pr votes]/[2009 absolute number of LINKE pr votes]
while I have calculated
[2013 relative share of LINKE pr votes]/[2009 relative share of LINKE pr votes]
The basic pattern remains the same.

I made these quotient maps (for both FDP and LINKE) because I thought that a difference map would not be able to highlight all aspects I wanted to show.

Observations:

- Normally when a party loses votes it loses more in absolute numbers in its strongholds, but relatively more in its weak areas. For example the LINKE has gone down 5.8 points in the East, which is a fifth of their 2009 vote share, and it has gone down 2.7 points in the West, which is almost a third of their 2009 vote share. Similarly for the FDP. The interesting cases are when constituencies deviate from this basic rule (*).

- As Franknburger has pointed out earlier the FDP has hold up relatively good in its urban/metropolitan stronghold, but lost heavily in more rural/small town country, particularly in Catholic areas (e.g. Oberschwaben).
- In the East (except Potsdam), particularly in Saxony, the FDP has lost much more than in their Western weak areas (e.g. Ruhr, Braunschweig)
- The Linke has held up better in Saxony than in the rest of the East despite the basic rule*.
- In Saarland their is some kind of reverse Lafontaine effect.
- For some reason the Linke has remained relatively stable in NRW, in many rural areas (Paderborn?!) better than for example in the Northern Ruhr area, violating the basic rule*.
- In (Eastern) Bavaria and (Northwestern) Lower Saxony the Linke has lost heavily, sometimes (Aurich-Emden, some villages in the Bavarian forest) violating the Basic rule.
- The most striking pattern for the Linke is that they have held up much better in university cities (Münster, Freiburg, Aachen, Tübingen, Heidelberg and so on) in particular and Green strongholds in general. To a great extent this is probably not Green voters switching to the Linke, but sign of an academically educated "alternative" Linke core vote sharing the same milieu with the Greens.

[minionofmidas]

It's a sign of those who switched from the Greens rather than the SPD being less likely to switch back (or stop voting altogether). Of course it helps that they form a larger share of the 2005 than the 2009 switchers. And before that, the 1994-2002 West German PDS vote, low as it was, mirrored the Green vote fairly closely except for a dropoff in the poshest bobo areas. Some of these are the old DKPniks (and very many of those who're doing it now were not of voting age in 1994), but the Greens started bleeding voters to the Commies before the SPD did.

[buritobr]

Why there is no equilibrium between the CDU/CSU and the SPD? From 1949 to 2013, the SPD had  the chancellery for only 20 years. There were 18 federal elections and the SPD had more votes than the CDU/CSU only in 1972, 1998 and 2005. The margin in these three elections were small, while the CDU/CSU had huge victories until 1965 and after 1983.

There is much more equilibrium between the Labour and the Tories, the PSOE and the PP, the Democratics and the Republicans.

[freivolk]

Why there is no equilibrium between the CDU/CSU and the SPD?

Simply because the CDU/CSU was always the more sucessfull goverment party.
1949 - 1969 Recovery from war, economic miracle, West Germany becomes a respected Nation  again.
1982 - 1998 Recovery from Stagnaflation, Reunification of Germany,
since 2005   Recovery from Recession

[palandio]

Why there is no equilibrium between the CDU/CSU and the SPD? From 1949 to 2013, the SPD had  the chancellery for only 20 years. There were 18 federal elections and the SPD had more votes than the CDU/CSU only in 1972, 1998 and 2005. The margin in these three elections were small, while the CDU/CSU had huge victories until 1965 and after 1983.

There is much more equilibrium between the Labour and the Tories, the PSOE and the PP, the Democratics and the Republicans.

You should distinguish between the historic perspective and the present.
At the moment the parties left of center have a strucural potential of roughly half of the vote. So basically the SPD should poll about even with the CDU like in 2002 and 2005. But then
1. the SPD has at least two rival parties in its half (Linke, Greens, to some extent even Pirates), while the CDU/CSU at first had only the FDP, now FDP and AfD, but they are (at the moment) weaker than Linke and Greens.
2. the federal SPD brand is still a bit damaged (not as damaged as in 2005, though), while Angela Merkel is very popular. If you look on the state level Lower Saxony and Hesse both are slightly left-of-average, but had reasonably popular CDU/FDP governments. Both lost. The CDU was still stronger than the SPD because of point 1.
3. turnout peaked in 1998 and dropped sharply in 2009. The SPD needs to win back at least some of these voters.
4. AfD seems to have catched some Linke and SPD voters.