German Elections & Politics

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First projection with actual ballot count...

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At least the FDP can now claim to be the sole establishment party to have increased its share of the vote.

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Greens now also below 5% according to ZDF

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AfD appears to have fully recovered from its Baden-Württemberg anti-semitism/leadership row a few weeks back:

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Seehofer tells Merkel to implement a cap of 200,000 refugees a year or the CSU won't support her (possible) re-election bid. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/fluechtlinge-horst-seehofer-droht-angela-merkel-mit-endgueltigem-bruch-a-1112584.html

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25.1% at noon, compared to 19.1% 5 years ago.

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/wahl-in-berlin/berlin-deutlich-hoehere-wahlbeteiligung-zeichnet-sich-ab-14441081.html

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Similar increase then compared to other state elections this year.

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Worst result ever for a winning party. Previous record: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landtagswahl_in_Schleswig-Holstein_1950

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Interesting that this time around, contrary to Meck-Westpom, the AfD is doing significantly better than the exit polls had predicted:

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New AfD record (among all pollsters) in the "Deutschlandtrend"

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AfD moves into 2nd place in Brandenburg according to this Forsa poll:

SPD 30
AfD 20
CDU 17
Left 17
Greens 6
FDP 4

http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/brandenburg.htm

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So is AfD likely to continue to grow nationally? Do they have a realistic ceiling?

Also...Why have they adopted a Climate denial platform? I would have thought something like that would get laughed out of parliament in a European country. Very unfortunate to see them doing well, especially in a country that's been successful with emissions cuts. Do people blame those for the slow economy or something?

I suppose it also has to do with the parties certain policies are associated with and partisans adjusting their policy preferences accordingly. Of course the party that is most associated with climate change and actions to curtail it are the Greens. There is no worse party for a right-wing populist than the Greens so taking a sceptical position on that issue is almost to be expected.

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And she's done such a fantastic job of handling these crises. So lucky to have her stay on. I'm sure her first meeting with President Le Pen will be interesting.

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AfD with its best result ever in a (regional) poll:

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And she's done such a fantastic job of handling these crises.

Well, she actually did.

Angela Merkel gets a lot of heat from both the far-right and the far-left for her crisis management, but considering the circumstances I can't honestly see how anyone could have done it any better.

And I say that as someone who doesn't prefer his party to enter a coalition with the CDU in 2017 (mainly because I don't see a lot of compatibility with the CDU regarding social and fiscal policies).

The eurozone crisis is still festering below the surface. Her handling of these crises has likely contributed to Britain's decision to leave the EU and a general spike in euroscepticism across the continent. Her decision to open the borders in late August of 2015 had disastrous consequences, both for Germany, the wider EU as well as many migrants who were duped into believing Germany had something to offer them (I know we'll disagree on that one). Thanks to Merkel we're now dependent on the whims of a semi-dictatorial regime in Turkey. Others will want to get the same deals. Even the CDU is now slowly but surely embracing policies that others called for a year ago (doing more to dissuade people from migrating to Europe, e.g. returning migrants to African shores) which indicates just how misguided her policies have been.

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Asylum is a human right? Where in the refugee convention does it state that a refugee is allowed to move to a country of their choice?

All Germany has to do is apply the constitution on this topic and the problem's solved. No hint of a human rights violation.

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Poor SPD...

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Yeah, we're literally talking about half a pctage point here. With the AfD firmly established as a protest party from the right there is no reason to vote NPD anymore unless you're firmly committed to the cause. In which case a ban would probably make you stay home on election day.

BTW...is this pollster any good? Have they polled German politics in the past?

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The guy spent 2 decades in Brussels. I'm pretty sure the CDU is sitting on an array of scandals that it'll release in due time.

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Haha, Schulzmentum is absolutely unreal to me as a Dutch citizen. The guy is hated here.

I suppose it's similar to the "fake" convention bumps you get in the US. SPD voters are probably more likely now to take part in polls and Schulz has moreover been receiving non-stop media coverage free of charge over the past few days. Eventually that'll die down of course.

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SPD + 5 with Forsa as well.

http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/forsa.htm

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Which party should lead the next government?