Who will be the next CDU chairman?

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There are currently twelve candidates: three prominent politicians, three no-names and six literal no-names, whose names aren't even known for unknown reasons.
The only official nominee is AKK so far, since she has officially been nominated by her state party, the Saar CDU.
You can't just throw your hat in the ring, but you need the nomination of the party executive at the federal, regional, state or local level. In the latter case you even need (I think) the official support of three chapters.

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Update: Friedrich Merz has been nominated by his county chapter Fulda.
Thus, there are two official nominees now.

I support Annegret KK, but I guess Merz wins (barely).

Bonn-based expert in international law Matthias Herdegen has renounced his candidacy and endorsed Merz.

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The odds on AAK have suddenly dropped from around 1.9 to 1.1. Did something happen?

Where did you get those figures from?

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The odds on AAK have suddenly dropped from around 1.9 to 1.1. Did something happen?

Where did you get those figures from?

Betfair, it has increased to around 1.2 now; but what is the answer to my question?

There's a yuuuuge media hype going on about Merz. Spahn, who has finally been officially nominated by his CDU chapter in Borken on Friday, recently made two very unpopular proposals as health minister, and AKK is a lackluster and bland candidate, whereas Merz, the hardcore-neoliberal BlackRock capitalist, is perceived as very controversial and provocative, but his divisive character could help the SPD. Plus, Merz dethroning the woman that killed his political career almost 20 ears ago reads like a soap opera-like storyline that is tailor-made for the popular press.
That's probably why.

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But that should move the odds in the other direction. What I was wondering was if anything happened that would make AKK the clear favorite, which is what a return of only 10-20% compared to 50-55% on Merz indicates.

Wait ... lower points = higher odds?

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This evening the first of eight "regional conference" will be held in Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein, this evening, which is comprised of members of the northern states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It will be introduced by Governor and CDU state chairman Daniel Günther.
Only official candidates, who have been nominated by a local chapter or state association, are allowed to participate in the debate, which only holds true for AKK, Spahn and Mr. Coaster.
The participants have ten minutes to introduce themselves, and afterwards the attendees will be provided the opportunity to ask them some questions. The order of the performances is chosen by lot.

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But that should move the odds in the other direction. What I was wondering was if anything happened that would make AKK the clear favorite, which is what a return of only 10-20% compared to 50-55% on Merz indicates.

Wait ... lower points = higher odds?

No, low points equal low odds. In this case 1.2 equals odds 1/5. It's two different ways of saying you get a 20% return on the bet. Higher odds, such as 2/5 which is a 40% return, means a lower probability something will happen. Bookies often use short and long odds instead of low and high to make it less confusing.

Okay, I hope I understand now:
Low points ≙ low odds ≙ high probability?
And high points ≙ high odds ≙ low probability?

I always thought odds and probability were synonyms. But I was obviously mistaken...

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To answer you question, the following poll says it all:

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Unfortunately, no test ballot was held on Friday. The interviews nearly all TV station conducted among the attendees of the debate clearly indicate an AKK win though.
Ironically, the order of their speeches drawn by lot happen to coincide with the eventual outcome of the upcoming chairman election. 😂

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ENDORSEMENT TIME!!!
There are seven official subsidiary organizations within the CDU/CSU:

Women's Union (FU; 155,000 members)
Young Union (JU; CDU/CSU's joint youth organization; 110,000 members; very powerful)
Seniors' Union (SU; 54,000 members)
Middle-Class and Trade Association (MIT; 30,000 members; very powerful)
Christian Democratic Employees' Association (CDA; many members)
East and Middle German Association (OMV)
Local-politics Association (KPV)

The Women's Union is the only sub-organization that has already committed itself. Guess to whom.
AKK also got the endorsement of the CDU Saarland state sub-organizations JU, FU, CDA and MIT.
The Seniors' Union is reported to endorse AKK, too.

There are some smaller CDU associations like the archconservative such as the "Values Union" or the "Berlin Circle" and the neoliberal Economic Advisory Council, all of which support Merz's candidacy.

There's another endorsement:

The Middle-Class and Trade Association (MIT) - unsurprisingly - endorsed Merz.

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Middle class would be a very confusing translation. "Mittelstand" basically means "small and medium-sized enterprises/ enterpreneurs.

Maybe "Industry and Commerce Association" would be a good rough translation.

I don't know that Mittelstand is also a term in the English language.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelstand

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Yesterday, the second "regional conference" was held. Initially planned to be set in Mainz, the meeting was rescheduled to Idar-Oberstein, Rhineland-Palatinate, due to the great crush. 2,000 members were attending the event (compared to the 900 attendees in the North conference). The conference was introduced by Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner.
One of the main topics was the Global Compact for Migration, which Spahn opposes, Merz is critical of and AKK supports. The loudest applause is reported to be received by Merz, even though it was AKK's home turf. The most belligerent attitude was - again - shown by Spahn, who attacked Merkel this time after attacking Merz at the last conference. Both times his aggressiveness was not well-received by the audience.

Right now, the third regional conference is being held in the tiny town of Seebach, Wartburg County, Thuringia, in front of 700 members from Thuringia and Hesse. Merz just dared to question the constitutional right of asylum.

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I support Annegret KK, but I guess Merz wins (barely).

No, that's wrong. AKK is likely to win by huge margins.

Here's the current poll among all CDU voters:

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Yesterday was the last regional conference in Berlin.
On December 7, Merkel's successor will be elected.
Does anybody know when she will be assuming office?

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Maybe one should point out, that NOT the the CDU-members will elect the new chairman. The chairman will be elected by 1001 delegates which are sent to the party convention in Hamburg next weekend from the 15 different CDU state-parties. Each state can sent a certain amount of delegates which depends on the number of CDU-members in the state and the last election result of the CDU in the state. Mostly MPs and state-legislators of the CDU are chosen as delegates. Some state-parties give a recommendation to vote for a certain candidate, but many state-parties do not give any advice. All delegates are allowed to vote their conscience. Therefore polls of the general popoulation or the CDU-members do not really give any prediction about who is going to win in the end, even though some delegates might take the general mood in the party into consideration when they make their decision.
Afaik polls among those 1001 delegates are planned and might be released this week.

Hm, I thought that has long been clarified.
Anyway, in case you'all been wondering why there are 1,001 and not 1,000 delegates: The 1,001st one is a delegate from the CDU chapter in Brussels, thus something like a local "CDU Abroad" branch. They're sending their chairman Tim Peters as a delegate.

Here is an overview of the number of delegates each state party is sending to the convention:



One thing is strange though: A Lower Saxony CDU state party actually doesn't exist. There are three statewide associations: Hanover, Brunswick, and Oldenburg:


I was proceeding on the assumption that each of the three associations would send their own delegates, but it seems like the Lower Saxon umbrella association was competent to choose all statewide delegates.

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Coffein, thanks for that info.  Any projections on which lander delegations will be strongholds for each candidate?

You should know that BILD and BILD AM SONNTAG are the FOX News of Germany.

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Here's the compilation of all the latest poll numbers from the state-run television:

All respondents:



All CDU voters:





Split into gender vote:



Who is more trustworthy / more likeable?



Who has more analytic expertise? / Who is more likely to represent the interests of the common people?



Favorability ratings of the most important politicians of the week:





Will the CDU derive benefit or sustain damage from the dispute over the chairmanship?

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The gender gap is pretty big.

Which brings us to the question: what is the gender makeup of the 1.001 CDU delegates ?

Regarding the members in total, you have 74% men and 26% women.
Thus, I assume there will be about 740 men and 260 women at the convention.

Edit: I found a source.
34% of the delegates are female. The highest share of women among the statewide delegates can be found in the Schleswig-Holstein delegation with 42.5%; The Saxon CDU only dispatches 3 women (out of 30 delegates) to Hamburg.
Even though women will be obviously overrepresented at the convention, the Westfälische Rundschau nevertheless speaks of "only" a third.

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The gender gap is pretty big.

Which brings us to the question: what is the gender makeup of the 1.001 CDU delegates ?

Regarding the members in total, you have 74% men and 26% women.
Thus, I assume there will be about 740 men and 260 women at the convention.

Edit: I found a source.
34% of the delegates are female. The highest share of women among the statewide delegates can be found in the Schleswig-Holstein delegation with 42.5%; The Saxon CDU only dispatches 3 women (out of 30 delegates) to Hamburg.

Interesting !

That is a fairly significant structural advantage for Merz then ...

Nonetheless, regarding all male CDU voters, AKK is still more popular than Merz. (Okay, technically speaking it's a statistical tie.)

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Yes, but they are not the ones voting.

Among CDU-voters, women make up 52% (or something along the lines of the general population).

Among the voting delegates, it is only 34% women.

That's a big difference.

Okay, that's right. The CDU has become a women's party thanks to the AfD. And if you substract the CSU out, it will become even more devastating for the former men's party.

Voting behavior based on gender during the latest federal election:

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I wonder what the 1% gay delegates will do in the second round.
Both Merz and AKK made very homophobic remarks in the past, the latter wholeheartedly repeated them on a political talk show just some weeks ago...

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I did the work and counted the single votes for all 15 states and the Brüssel vote:

Bundesland (State)	Delegates	AKK	Merz	Spahn
Berlin	30	2	2	2
Rheinland-Pfalz	89	13	10	0
Sachsen-Anhalt	18	2	0	0
Brandenburg	17	0	0	0
Sachsen	30	1	10	1
Thüringen	24	2	1	0
Saarland	34	21	0	0
Nordrhein-Westfalen	296	21	46	20
Hamburg	17	1	7	0
Schleswig-Holstein	47	11	4	0
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern	14	1	0	1
Bremen	5	1	0	0
Niedersachsen	137	6	13	1
Hessen	88	6	7	3
Baden-Würtemberg	154	11	44	0
Brüssel	1	0	0	1

Great work! 👍🏻

I wonder who the Spahn supporter from MV may be? Don't tell me it's this guy...😂

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How did you know :-P

When I saw him on TV for the very first time, he reminded me so of Spahn.
I was absolutely staggered when I discovered that that Milchbubi careerist won the direct mandate of that Bundestag district which encompasses all Landtag districts won by the AfD.

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Do you understand what some of us consider the problem? A list of all the latest polls is only meaningful to a certain degree when they're polling CDU voters and not delegates. Comprende?

Comprendí. ¡No te exaltes! I just proceed on the assumption that a) the delegation shares similar views as the CDU support base and b) that the delegates are strongly oriented towards the opinion of their voters.

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Do you understand what some of us consider the problem? A list of all the latest polls is only meaningful to a certain degree when they're polling CDU voters and not delegates. Comprende?

Comprendí. ¡No te exaltes! I just proceed on the assumption that a) the delegation shares similar views as the CDU support base and b) that the delegates are strongly oriented towards the opinion of their voters.

Ok, as long as there is no other information, it makes more sense to proceed on your assumptions than to assume the contrary. I think that someone tried to poll real delegates and that among these delegates AKK was weaker and Spahn stronger than among the whole CDU electorate, with Merz ahead of AKK and Spahn still behind. But you could rightfully doubt the representativity of the sample. So, altogether we don't know very much yet.

The worst thing that could happen to AKK is receiving a plurality of votes. If her result isn't near 50% I don't know how she could survive the second round.