🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[YL]

Something I've always wondered is why do the FDP never seem to get any direct mandates?  Do they not target the direct seats or are they just screwed by having a relatively evenly distributed vote base like our LolDems?

They don't have a specific bastion where it's likely to win a direct mandate. That's different with Die Linke and of course AfD and Greens. In past election cycles, a lot of local FDP chapters informally endorsed CDU candidates while asking for the second vote (which is for the party, while the first is for a local candidate).

And with the German electoral system of course there isn't the motivation the Lib Dems have to try to develop the areas of local strength necessary to win direct mandates.

(I'm not convinced the parties are really that similar, anyway, other than in their approximate level of support.)

[YL]

Very funny that the first poll to show this would be a Forsa. Anyway, that's another poll with Die Linke only just about hovering about the threshold.

I thought the 5% threshold was unlikely to ever apply to Linke since there are some exceptions for parties that win direct mandates (which the Linke always does) and/or which hit the 5% threshold in the former DDR

They would need to win three direct mandates to be exempted.  They currently have five, four in Berlin and one in Leipzig, and the four in Berlin were won fairly comfortably last time.

[YL]

Both in 2010 and 2017 in the UK there were rumoured exit polls, in the latter case tweeted by a well known media figure.  In both cases the rumours were way off both the results and the actual exit polls.

[YL]

Final Result:

Seats: SPD 206, CDU 151, Grüne 118, FDP 92, AfD 83, CSU 45, Linke 39, SSW 1
Total: 735, Majority: 368

Traffic Light: 416
Jamaica: 406
R2G: 363, short by 5

Which one did SSW win? Or is theirs from the proportional part because they’re an ethnic interest party? I think I vaguely remember hearing something about them being exempt from the 5% or 3 constituencies rule?

SSW is a recognized minority interest party. Therefore, the 5% threshold does not apply to they, they just need to win enough votes to get a proportional seat in S-H.

Their best results on the Zweitstimme were 9.2% in Flensburg-Schleswig (the eastern of the two constituencies along the Danish border), 6.6% in Nordfriesland-Dithmarschen Nord (the western), and 4.5% in Rendsburg-Eckenförde.  Elsewhere in Schleswig-Holstein they seem to have been getting 1% or 2% generally.

[YL]

I note that on the Zweitstimme the Greens carried Leipzig II and Berlin-Treptow-Köpenick and Berlin-Lichtenberg were both carried by the SPD.  So Die Linke were saved by the different dynamics of the Erststimme.