German Elections & Politics

[Tender Branson]

In the new ARD projection for BW, the AfD just went from 12.5 to 13.1

[Tender Branson]

Damn ... Gov. Kretschmann (Greens) has some stratospheric approval ratings:

[Tender Branson]

Gov. Dreyer (SPD) beats Klöckner by 20% in the direct vote for Governor:



78% approve of the job she's doing:



I have really underestimated the "Governor-effect" in RP. This helped the SPD win additional ground, while the SPD in the other states crashed today.

[Tender Branson]

Gov. Kretschmann had a huge pull-effect in BW.

Half of today's Green voters only voted Green because of Kretschmann.

[Tender Branson]

With the AfD approaching 15% in BW, the state results are now much more in line with my prediction ...

[Tender Branson]

Merkel's coalition "only" lost 22-23% today in population-rich BW. No need to worry ...

[Tender Branson]

LOL, from the Sachsen-Anhalt exit poll:



"I'm relieved that now only few refugees are coming to Germany anymore."

"The number of refugees should be reduced on a continuing basis."

"Mainstream parties are not taking seriously the concerns of citizens on the refugee topic."

"Angela Merkel has made a huge mistake with her refugee policy."

...

"More is done for refugees/immigrants rather than for the native population."

(notice how Left-party voters are 2nd to the AfD on this question)

[Tender Branson]

AfD tops 24% in Sachsen-Anhalt, NPD is around 3%.

AfD is first there among voters under 30, and just 2 points behind the CDU in the age group 30-60.

[Tender Branson]

The result in SA is ultra-bad news for Linke where AfD might end up displacing it as the main protest party, especially in its Eastern Germany base.

There are also indicators that many former Left voters voted AfD today ...

[Tender Branson]

I suppose the exit polls may have fallen victim to a "shy AfD" effect.

Definitely.

Which is funny, because in Austria's state elections last year the "exit polls" overestimated the FPÖ by about 5% in Vienna and 2% in Upper Austria.

[Tender Branson]

New ARD projection:

Sachsen-Anhalt

[Tender Branson]

Rheinland-Pfalz

3173/4824 precincts counted

36.2% SPD
31.8% CDU
13.0% AfD
  6.1% FDP
  4.9% Greens
  2.7% Left
  5.2% Others

[Tender Branson]

Sachsen-Anhalt, actual count, 1007/2494 precincts in:



AfD gets up to 30% in the rural areas, and 15-20% in Magdeburg.

[Tender Branson]

AfD does extremely well in the Southern part of Sachsen-Anhalt, near Sachsen (getting 30-40% in the cities there):

[Tender Branson]

In total, far-right parties got 27% in SA, 17% in BW and 14% in RP.

That's ca. 17-18% on average in all 3 states.

It's also interesting that the AfD won more direct seats than they won in the list vote in their Sachsen-Anhalt strongholds in the South.

I wonder if this has to do with NPD posters calling to vote for the AfD direct candidate, but NPD for the party list.



In several of these Southern districts where the AfD won the direct but not the list vote, the NPD got up to 4% in the list vote. Which could have made the difference in a close race.

Direct seats



Party list



Also, it can not be argued that the low turnout in SA (61%) was responsible for the AfD result.

Looking at the results map, the AfD performed well in low-turnout as well as in high-turnout areas.

There were several areas with between 61-68% turnout, in which the AfD got 25-40% and therefore above their statewide average.

https://www.statistik.sachsen-anhalt.de/wahlen/lt16/fms/fms2111511g.html

[Tender Branson]

Here's a pretty good, clickable map for Sachsen-Anhalt with each party down to the municipal level:

http://www3.mz-web.de/landtagswahl2016-sachsen-anhalt

Erststimme = constituency vote
Zweitstimme = party list vote

[Tender Branson]

  Why did the Greens collapse so bad in RP?

likely tactical voting because it was obvious the real question is whether spd or cdu leads the grand coälition

The Greens ran a pretty sh**tty campaign there and were paralyzed by internal struggles between party factions.

There are more reasons than that:

* The 2011 elections pushed the Greens unnaturally high because they were held right after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe
* Loan voting for SPD's Gov. Dreyer in her fight with Klöckner
* Some former centrist Greens from the Fukushima-wave election staying home because of the Greens overly pro-refugee positions
* No strong frontrunner like Kretschmann in BW

[Tender Branson]

Interesting north-south divide. What's the explanation behind it?

The North is closer to urban Berlin (I guess not few are commuting to work there) and the South closer to Saxony (which is AfD epicenter).

[Tender Branson]

New Bavaria poll suggests the CSU's hardline position against Merkel's naive migrant policy is paying off - with the CSU managing to hold the AfD below 10%, while remaining stable itself:



Compared with the 2013 state election:

CSU: n.c.
SPD: -5%
Greens: +2%
AfD: +9%
FW: -4%
FDP: +2%
Others: -4%

Center-Right: 67%
Center-Left: 27%

[Tender Branson]

Update after the March state elections:

* Rheinland-Pfalz gets a SPD-Green-FDP coalition ("traffic light")
* Sachsen-Anhalt gets a CDU-SPD-Green coalition ("Kenya")
* In Baden-Württemberg, Greens-CDU are in intense talks ("Kiwi")

[Tender Branson]

If they underpoll like in Sachsen-Anhalt, the AfD could win the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election in early September, according to a new poll by Infratest dimap:

24% CDU
22% SPD
18% AfD
16% Left
  8% Greens
  4% FDP
  4% NPD
  4% Others

https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/mecklenburg-vorpommern/umfrage878.pdf

[Tender Branson]

New Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election poll (NDR/Infratest dimap):

25% CDU (+2 compared with 2011 election)
22% SPD (-14)
19% AfD (+19)
17% Left (-1)
  7% Greens (-2)
  4% NPD (-2)
  3% FDP (nc)
  3% Others (-2)

State election is on Sept. 4

[Tender Branson]

Latest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin state election (Sept.) polls:



By West/East Berlin:



Mecklenburg-Vorpommern:

[Tender Branson]

Another Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election poll (Infratest Dimap for NDR):

[Tender Branson]

The AfD likely underpolls by 3-6%, so their actual vote is likely ~25%.

Which means they could still fight with SPD and CDU for first place.

But the SPD-Governor's popularity will likely secure the SPD its first place in the end.

The state election is in 2 weeks, btw.