🇩🇪 German state & local elections

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cdu numbers aren't much better than spd. it's nice to see linke that high in thuringia and berlin.

That's because Bodo Ramelow, a Linke politician, is the minister president of Thuringia.
He came up, however, with a very unpopular proposal just tody that will cost him very many votes...

[President Johnson]

cdu numbers aren't much better than spd. it's nice to see linke that high in thuringia and berlin.

That's because Bodo Ramelow, a Linke politician, is the minister president of Thuringia.
He came up, however, with a very unpopular proposal just tody that will cost him very many votes...

The guy is pretty much done anyway, I doubt his coalition will get another majority.

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cdu numbers aren't much better than spd. it's nice to see linke that high in thuringia and berlin.

That's because Bodo Ramelow, a Linke politician, is the minister president of Thuringia.
He came up, however, with a very unpopular proposal just tody that will cost him very many votes...

The guy is pretty much done anyway, I doubt his coalition will get another majority.

I guess there will be a Kenya coalition in Thuringia, just like in neighboring Saxony-Anhalt.
The minister-presidential candidate of the CDU, Mike Mohring, has developed malignant cancer, but he has successfully been over chemotherapy.

[DL]

Horrible news for the SPD in its mega stronghold Bremen, which holds its state election on May 26.
Imagine Washington D.C. elects a Republican mayor... 😆

I don't have to imagine. New York City has regularly elected Republicans as mayor (i.e. Giuliani and Bloomberg) and so has Los Angeles.

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Horrible news for the SPD in its mega stronghold Bremen, which holds its state election on May 26.
Imagine Washington D.C. elects a Republican mayor... 😆

I don't have to imagine. New York City has regularly elected Republicans as mayor (i.e. Giuliani and Bloomberg) and so has Los Angeles.

But Washington D.C. is way bigger Demcratic stronghold than NYC or LA.
Berlin and Hamburg have voted CDU in the past also, but Bremen literally never did.

[DL]

Horrible news for the SPD in its mega stronghold Bremen, which holds its state election on May 26.
Imagine Washington D.C. elects a Republican mayor... 😆

I don't have to imagine. New York City has regularly elected Republicans as mayor (i.e. Giuliani and Bloomberg) and so has Los Angeles.

Washington DC is also over 70% African-American - so it would be comparable to a city in Germany where three quarters of the voting population were refugees from Syria and their kids - if the CDU was a racist party that wanted to expel them all. Not sure there is any analogy there
But Washington D.C. is way bigger Demcratic stronghold than NYC or LA.
Berlin and Hamburg have voted CDU in the past also, but Bremen literally never did.

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Here is the current composition of the 16 German state governments:

Looking at tht map, one thing comes into my mind...
Y'all know that we Germans give every kind of coalition a name based on the colors of its parties being involved: Ampel, Jamaika/Schwampel, Tigerente/Biene Maja, Dänenampel, Afghanistan/Kenia, Pizza-Connection etc.
Some weeks a ago, there was a question asked at a quiz show how the media call the CSU-Free Voters coalition. I have never heard of the answer (nor did the "politics expert"), but I googled it and the Bavarian press really seems to use that neologism...

Take a guess! I'll give you a hint: The coalition is named after a tropical fruit...

Btw, for those interested: There were rumors circulating (which we discussed here) that the German version of Greg Mathis/Joe Brown , former TV judge Alexander Hold, could become the new justice minister, but he didn't; he only became one of the vice presidents of the Bavarian Landtag. The new justice minister is CSU politician Georg Eisenreich.

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Notate bene: In order to enter the Bremische Bürgerschaft, a party needs to pass the 5% threshold in either Bremen or Bremerhaven. That's why the BIW (Bürger in Wut = "citizens in a rage") has been able to enter the state parliament since 2007 despite receiving less of 5% statewide, but thanks to passing the 5% threshold in Bremerhaven.

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Bremen is apparently close between CDU and SPD.

I think this is the first time since the foundation of the Federal Republic (And maybe even earlier) that the Bremen state election is exciting.

[RedPrometheus]

Bremen is apparently close between CDU and SPD.

I think this is the first time since the foundation of the Federal Republic (And maybe even earlier) that the Bremen state election is exciting.

True

[RedPrometheus]

It might take a while tonight before we know what will happen in Bremen. Apparently it is really close.

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In 2015, Bremen Mayor Jens Böhrnsen immediately resigned after the state election because his SPD got the worst result ever:

Current Mayor Carsten Sieling is likely to get 10% fewer votes than Böhrnsen, perhaps coming off worse than the CDU for the very first time, but he will probably not step down.
Sieling is not only the least popular governor of a German state, he is even so unknown that even many political leaders don't know his name. You can see below how Sahra Wagenknecht (Left), Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Greens) and Christian Lindner (FDP) start stammering when asked the Mayor's name... 😅

[mubar]

Bremen is apparently close between CDU and SPD.

I think this is the first time since the foundation of the Federal Republic (And maybe even earlier) that the Bremen state election is exciting.

True

No, I would call the Bremen election 1995 a true nail-biter. SPD and CDU ended up with the same number of seats and SPD was the largest party with just a 0.8 percentage points difference. Further, the 2 other parties who managed to get in were also close to each other, Greens being slightly bigger than the right-wing AFB (which was actually a SPD splinter but closer to CDU on most things). So red-green held 51 seats against 49 for the right. In the end they went for GroKo with SPD and CDU even at 37 seats each.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1132678410583646219

R2G and Jamaica have majority.

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https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1132678410583646219

R2G and Jamaica have majority.

No, those are totally wrong exit polls.  

The AfD is polling at 7% according to ARD.

[mubar]

I would also say that while SPD having been the largest party in Bremen since the beginning of Federal German Republic and always leading the government is an impressive statistic, the election in 1995 could easily have led to SPD losing both of these streaks already back then. So, after the times (60s, 70s and 80s) when SPD could get majority alone, it hasn't been quite the one-party hegemony the media narrative often makes it to seem.

[mubar]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1132678410583646219

R2G and Jamaica have majority.

No, those are totally wrong exit polls.  

The AfD is polling at 7% according to ARD.

What do you mean, "totally wrong"? Those are FGW's numbers for ZDF. Infratest dimap has a bit different numbers for ARD. Later in the night we'll see who got it closer.

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https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1132678410583646219

R2G and Jamaica have majority.

No, those are totally wrong exit polls.  

The AfD is polling at 7% according to ARD.

What do you mean, "totally wrong"? Those are FGW's numbers for ZDF. Infratest dimap has a bit different numbers for ARD. Later in the night we'll see who got it closer.

A difference of 2% is huge for a middle-sized party like the AfD. One oughta mention that ZDF is way more left-wing than ARD.
It'll take much time time to tally the votes as the Bremen citizens have five votes that they can allocate between different parties and candidates in open lists. Plus, municipal advisory council were also elected in Bremen today, using the same complicated open-list voting method.

[mubar]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1132678410583646219

R2G and Jamaica have majority.

No, those are totally wrong exit polls.  

The AfD is polling at 7% according to ARD.

What do you mean, "totally wrong"? Those are FGW's numbers for ZDF. Infratest dimap has a bit different numbers for ARD. Later in the night we'll see who got it closer.

A difference of 2% is huge for a middle-sized party like the AfD. One oughta mention that ZDF is way more left-wing than ARD.
It'll take much time time to tally the votes as the Bremen citizens have five votes that they can allocate between different parties and candidates in open lists. Plus, municipal advisory council were also elected in Bremen today, using the same complicated open-list voting method.

Fair enough, it might well be that we don't have the final results until tomorrow.

I don't think it's in any way reasonable to evaluate the exit polls from FGW and dimap based on what posters here think about the relative left-right-positioning of German TV channels. Just look at the track record of exit polls:

Federal election 2017
Lower Saxony 2017
Bavaria 2018
Hesse 2018

In each case the difference between the 2 is small. Just looking at the AfD result, they had exactly same % in Lower Saxony (underestimation) and Bavaria (overestimation). ZDF exit poll gave a 0.5 lower number for AfD in federal election than ARD did, but they both overestimated, so ZDF was actually closer. Finally in Hesse ZDF had AfD 1 point higher than ARD had, and indeed got it almost right. So based on the 4 latest "tests", ZDF exit polls seem to capture AfD numbers better than ARD, regardless how left-wing the sender may be.

Further, I would think that any pollster or sender certainly strives to have as accurate exit poll results as possible. Any political bias wouldn't make sense as your exit poll quality will be directly compared to the real results anyway. So no matter what you think about polling in general, at least in this the pollster's jobs depend on how accurate they were.

What is true though is that 2 point difference between exit polls for a small party is rare. Must be related to the turnout model as ARD shows turnout as 66% while ZDF lower at 62% which is also a big difference.

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Any word on who will form government in Bremen?

Absolute tossup. I'd say Meyer-Heder (CDU) has the better chances with a Jamaica coalition.
If the SPD somehow manages to form a red-green-red coalition, I can't think of Sieling (SPD) persevering in presiding over the Senate.

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The official final results will not be published before tomorrow. That's because of the complicated voting system (5 "first votes" + 5 "second votes" + 5 votes for the local advisory councils). Only two thirds of the wards have been counted yet.
But one result has already become apparent: Carsten Meyer-Heder (CDU) received 58,481 "first votes", Mayor Carsten Sieling (SPD) only 36,310.

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Here are the official results of the Bremen state election:




Take a look at the Greens' utterly anticlimactic result in Bremerhaven. 😂😂😂


It's also interesting how the AfD results changed in either city;
in 2015, the AfD received 5.59% in Bremen and 4.97% in Bremerhaven. This year, the AfD is fared much better in Bremerhaven than in Bremen. On the hand, that was due to the fact that the AfD was still led by Bernd Lucke, who was a neoliberal and therefore focused his effort on the Euro instead of immigration; all but one representative withdrew from the party when Frauke Petry took over. On the other hand, Bremerhaven already had a right-wing populist party with the BIW (Citizens In A Rage").