German Elections & Politics

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1st:  How did Schulz completely collapse?
2nd:  Will AFD, FDP, The Greens, or Die Linke win the race for third?
3rd:   Is there a scenario in which CDU/CSU, FDP, and The Greens combined can't form a government?

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1st:  How did Schulz completely collapse?
2nd:  Will AFD, FDP, The Greens, or Die Linke win the race for third?
3rd:   Is there a scenario in which CDU, FDP, and The Greens combined can't form a government?

1st:  Actually, he didn't collapse. It was just a short rearing up because something allegedly new surfaced in the media, and now he's still over Gabriel's level of polling.

2nd:  No clue, but I'd say AfD.

3rd:  You mean CDU/CSU? No.

Reasoning for AfD?  Polls in Austria, France, and Netherlands all overestimated the Far-Right party.

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1st:  How did Schulz completely collapse?
2nd:  Will AFD, FDP, The Greens, or Die Linke win the race for third?
3rd:   Is there a scenario in which CDU, FDP, and The Greens combined can't form a government?

1st:  Actually, he didn't collapse. It was just a short rearing up because something allegedly new surfaced in the media, and now he's still over Gabriel's level of polling.

2nd:  No clue, but I'd say AfD.

3rd:  You mean CDU/CSU? No.

Reasoning for AFD?  Polls in Austria, France, and Netherlands all overestimated the Far-Right party.

I think it's because the AfD (with a lower case f) is simply different from all the other parties.
Plus, the left-wing terroristic violence at the G20 summit and the same-sex marriage bill could have a marked effect on the right-wing populist movement.

Anarchism at home probably does help AfD, and a small number of disaffected social conservatives may vote AFD as a protest against Merkel.

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I think AfD will underperform following the recent trend despite the protests. Then again all of my predictions have been wrong since brexit. They were:

-No Brexit
-Clinton victory
-PVV getting 1st place (The Netherlands)
-Le Pen getting 40% or more of the vote (France)
-Estes would win by more than he did (KS-04)
-Quist win (MT-AL)
-Conservative majority (UK)
-Ossoff win (GA-06)
-Norman would win by more than he did (SC-05)

I'm 0 for 9. On my record, AfD might come in first or something crazy.

If Merkel makes some sort of vague promise to the right AFD can underperform, like how Rutte won because he tacked to the right on the last couple days and had that spat with Turkey.

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1st:  How did Schulz completely collapse?

I'll quote a comment of mine from February:

Keep in mind though that historically the SPD has always polled at least in the 30s in German elections so the pre-Schulz low 20s polling numbers were themselves the anomaly and what we are seeing now is very much a reversion to the historic pattern

Who cares about history though when your last 2 election results look like this:

2013: 25.7
2009: 23.0

Moreover the last time the SPD polled consistently in the low 30s (i.e. 32% or more) was about a decade ago:
http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/dimap/2006.htm
http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/dimap/2007.htm

If I had to wager some money on whether the SPD was going to get either 20 or 30% of the vote, I'd definitely be more comfortable placing a bet on the former. The SPD's problem (and I suppose this applies to most socdems) has been that it's not really the first choice for any particular segment of society anymore. Left-leaning people with a university degree and a home in the suburbs can opt for the Greens or more recently the Merkel-CDU as well. People in their 20s who dream of smashing globalization are also more at home in the Left Party or the Greens while the working class/precariat prefers the Left or now the AfD. All of those people could see themselves as SPD-voters as well I suppose but ultimately the SPD's message has become so diluted that it's not surprising the party has recently come in third or even fourth in state elections. Maybe a fresh face like Schulz can provide a bit of a bounce in the short term but the broader trend behind the SPD's demise will take more than a eurocrat to reverse - if that's even possible in this day and age.

The German Social Democrats are a 25% party. Not much more, with the potential for further losses IMO significantly bigger than that of any noteworthy gains.

So the SPD is essentially losing voters to the right and the left by not having a coherent message, and Schulz isn't doing anything to really fix it.

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Wahl-O-Mat Results

AFD:  60.5%
FDP:  56.6%
CDU/CSU:  43.4%
Greens:  36.8%
SPD:  36.8%
Die Linke:  35.5%
Piraten:  31.6%

Interesting.

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Well, the demise of Schulz may actually have hurt the CDU/CSU in the sense that some of their dissatisfied voters may now once again feel they can afford to send a message to Merkel by voting AfD in light of the fact that Schulz is nowhere close to winning the chancellery.

We'll see, but AFD seems to be trending up in the latest polls, so you just might be right.

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Schulz btfo.

(Also AFD surge, it appears the fact that Schulz is becoming completely irrelevant is helping AFD, yay.)

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Welp, I didn't expect it that quickly.  Can't wait for another poll to confirm so everyone stops doubting

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Rest in Spaghet SPD, Forever Regret

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What is SPD even doing anymore?  Are they trying to collapse or something?