European Parliament Election: May 23-26, 2019

[Tender Branson]

The liberal NEOS is also out with a 1st poster campaign:





Left poster:

"Fix it, instead of Brexit. Europe - let's make something out of it."

Center poster:

"Europe - let's make something out of it."

Right poster:

"So, guys: Europe - let's make something out of it."

---

Link to the SPÖ posters.

Link to the FPÖ posters.

Link to the Green posters.

[Tender Branson]

KPÖ+ (Communist Party) election posters:

"Be a man, be a woman, be whatever you want to be. Vote 100% social, instead of voting for cheap slogans."

"Winter has come." (pictured is Austria's FPÖ-Interior Minister Kickl)

"Despite having a hangover ... go and vote !"

Not bad.

[Tender Branson]

The Bertelsmann Stiftung will be out with a major survey of 12 EU countries today, surveying more than 24.000 people and the motives for voting in the EU elections.

https://www.welt.de/newsticker/news1/article192483223/Umfragen-Umfrage-Europaeer-koennten-Europawahl-fuer-Denkzettel-nutzen.html

The preliminary write-up shows that voters of the far-left and far-right are more motivated to vote than the voters of the centrist establishment parties and will use the election as a protest vote. I don't know if they also polled the actual election in each of the 12 countries.

[Tender Branson]

New Austria EU poll by "Market" for the "Standard" newspaper (method: mixed-mode phone+internet, n=803 people aged 16+, April 12-15:

30% ÖVP (+3.0%)
28% SPÖ (+3.9%)
20% FPÖ (+0.3%)
  9% NEOS (+0.9%)
  8% Greens (-6.5%)
  2% Europe NOW (+2.0%)
  3% KPÖ+ / invalid (+3.0%)

Projected turnout: 48% (+2.6%)

"Are things in the EU moving in the right or wrong direction ?"

21% right
61% wrong

https://derstandard.at/2000101731473/Nur-jeder-Fuenfte-sieht-Entwicklung-der-EU-derzeit-positiv

[Tender Branson]

As the ballots are printed and sent to voters next week, the candidate lists of the 7 parties on the ballot have also been posted on the Interior Ministry page.

ÖVP, SPÖ, FPÖ, Greens and NEOS all have a 50% women share among their Top-10 candidates.

KPÖ+ and Europe NOW (they only have 8 candidates in total) have more women than men on their Top-10 list.

Here are the candidates (purple candidates are current Members of the EU Parliament already):

ÖVP

  1. Karas Othmar (*1957)
  2. Edtstadler Karoline (*1981)
  3. Winzig Angelika (*1963)
  4. Schmiedtbauer Simone (*1974)
  5. Mandl Lukas (*1979)
  6. Pirchner Wolfram (*1958)
  7. Sagartz Christian (*1981)
  8. Thaler Barbara (*1982)
  9. Zoll Christian (*1993)
10. Wolf-Schöffmann Claudia (*1969)

SPÖ

  1. Schieder Andreas (*1969)
  2. Regner Evelyn (*1966)
  3. Sidl Günther (*1975)
  4. Vollath Bettina (*1962)
  5. Heide Hannes (*1966)
  6. Herr Julia (*1992)
  7. Dax Christian (*1988)
  8. Mösl Stefanie (*1985)
  9. Kaiser Luca (*1994)
10. Muigg Theresa (*1984)

FPÖ

  1. Vilimsky Harald (*1966)
  2. Mayer Georg (*1973)
  3. Steger Petra (*1987)
  4. Haider Roman (*1967)
  5. Schuster Vesna (*1974)
  6. Dieringer-Granza Elisabeth (*1974)
  7. Graf Josef (*1970)
  8. Kurz Maximilian (*1995)
  9. Kerbleder Andrea (*1976)
10. Berger Karin (*1963)

Greens

  1. Kogler Werner (*1961)
  2. Wiener Sarah (*1962)
  3. Vana Monika (*1969)
  4. Waitz Thomas (*1973)
  5. Voglauer Olga (*1980)
  6. Schobesberger Thomas (*1991)
  7. Bergauer Bettina (*1962)
  8. Vetter Simon (*1984)
  9. Kayer Mirjam Lena (*1996)
10. Tschebul Florian (*1997)

NEOS

  1. Gamon Claudia (*1988)
  2. Feldinger Karin (*1975)
  3. Windberger Stefan (*1989)
  4. Zotti Stefan (*1976)
  5. Tsiklauri Nini (*1992)
  6. Margreiter Johannes (*1958)
  7. Reiter Teresa (*1988)
  8. Schneider Isak (*1976)
  9. Berry Peter (*1991)
10. Reichenhauser Julia (*1996)

KPÖ+

  1. Anastasiou Aikaterini (*1983)
  2. Klaus Melina (*1968)
  3. Tamas Cristina-Annamaria (*1968)
  4. Zach Dietmar (*1965)
  5. Erdődi Katalin (*1980)
  6. Cortés Barbado Luis (*1986)
  7. Grünn Gerlinde (*1968)
  8. Kurt Cevdet (*1970)
  9. Hammer Heidelinde (*1973)
10. Janson Sven (*1985)

Europe NOW

  1. Voggenhuber Johannes (*1950)
  2. Krainer Marion (*1963)
  3. Faller Gabriele (*1970)
  4. Gaupmann Sandra (*1972)
  5. Huber Thomas (*1961)
  6. Ratheiser Theresa Lisa (*1993)
  7. Beclin Barbara (*1968)
  8. Dachler Marlies (*1988)

---

The big parties ÖVP, SPÖ and FPÖ will get 4-7 seats and Greens, NEOS either 1-2 seats. Current polling shows that KPÖ+ and Europe NOW will get no seats.

The ÖVP uses a strict internal preference vote system though, so if for example the 10th on their list gets more preference votes than those listed ahead of that candidate, this candidate will become an MEP.

[Tender Branson]

Just noticed that the liberal NEOS has Nini Tsiklauri on their list as 5th.

Tsiklauri is a former actress on the German kids television channel KIKA, with Georgian roots.

That would be like Miley Cyrus running for office ...

(... but for her to be elected to the EU parliament, NEOS would need some 20-25% of the vote, which is of course impossible).

 

[Tender Branson]

(... but for her to be elected to the EU parliament, NEOS would need some 20-25% of the vote, which is of course impossible).

Or enough preference votes?

That is correct, but still very unrealistic.

For someone to be moved up the list, you need enough preference votes from 5% of the party list vote.

In the 2014 election, NEOS got 230.000 votes - so she would need ca. 12.000 preference votes this time. Which is a lot. In the 2014 EU election, only 7 candidates got more than 10.000 preference votes: 2x ÖVP, 2x SPÖ and the frontrunners from FPÖ, Greens and NEOS.

And most candidates from parties other than from the ÖVP are not really running a preference vote campaign. Only the ÖVP has instructed their candidates to run a fierce, competetive PV campaign to energize their base.

In theory, the PV system would be great for voters to select their preferred candidates, but neither are voters informed enough about that process, nor do they really care about the candidates, nor do the parties really enforce the process ...

[Tender Branson]

The FPÖ seems to have a mobilisation problem with their base, as seen in the latest poll where they dropped to 20%.



Therefore, both Strache and Hofer are ramping up their campaigning by using some extremist language in their weekend newspaper interviews, which is very similar to the Identitarians:

Strache:

"The FPÖ continues the way forward for our home country Austria, the fight against population exchange, consistently, as the people expect from us."

When confronted with the term "population exchange" being a Neo-Nazi term, Strache says:

"That's a concept of reality. We do not want to become a minority in our own homeland. That is legitimate and honest and deeply democratic. Only where someone tries to enforce his political goals by force, it is right-wing extremism, which of course has no place in a democracy."

Norbert Hofer about the recent "unique" cases of racism/antisemitism in the FPÖ:

"We have completely other concerns right now than gaffes/"unique" cases of party members: that Austria's excessive immigration makes it a Muslim-majority country."

https://orf.at/#/stories/3120327

[Tender Branson]

Research Affairs has released crosstabs for various subgroups from their latest EU poll:



ÖVP+FPÖ are more popular with men, SPÖ+Greens with women.

ÖVP is quite popular with retired people, while the FPÖ does best with the working-age crowd. Greens and NEOS do best with young voters.

Salzburg is the state most loyal to the current ÖVP+FPÖ government, Vienna is the most leftist state.

The FPÖ-share drops to just 3% among those with a university degree.

[Tender Branson]

Burgenland (= state of Austria) EU poll:

34% ÖVP (+3%)
33% SPÖ (-1%)
20% FPÖ (+2%)
  8% Greens (n.c.)
  3% NEOS (-2%)
  1% E-Now (+1%)
  1% Others (-3%)

This is bad news for the SPÖ, because Burgenland is one of their strongholds. They should not be overtaken by the ÖVP there ... but even in 2017 it was already extremely close.

https://www.tt.com/ticker/15591777/doskozil-kaeme-laut-umfrage-bei-lh-direktwahl-auf-57-prozent

[Tender Branson]

  8% Greens (n.c.)
 

How relistic is this?
The Burgenland was the weakest Bundesland 2014 (with 8.1% 6.5 lower than whole austria)

Not sure.

I think the Greens will do relatively well in the EU election, compared with their abysmal 2017 federal election result (3.8%), but lose compared with the 2014 EU election (14.6%).

I think 8-10% is realistic for them, with another 2-4% for Europe Now.

PS: a new ORF Report poll today projects turnout at 51%, which would be 6% higher than in 2014.

[Tender Branson]

The SPÖ is out with their next wave of posters, among them is a poster to increase turnout to prevent a shift to the (far)-right („Vote instead of remaining silent.“):



They are also out with a campaign video showing a single-mom with 2 kids:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eupP3H6zgls

[Tender Branson]

Austria's Wahlkabine is online. 25 questions can be answered about the EU election to see which party you closest to. My closest party is the SPÖ, with the FPÖ dead last.



https://wahlkabine.at/eu2019/wahlkabine/1

[Tender Branson]

FPÖ 238, ÖVP 90, EUROPA 19, NEOS -85, KPÖ -165, SPÖ -173, GRÜNE -291.

Even though I agree on such things as "the EU should not set up their own asylum agency" (the countries should of course continue to decide on their own) and "development aid payments should be tied to deportation agreements with the countries that receive them" - all key FPÖ-positions - the FPÖ still ranked dead last in my results.

Maybe because the FPÖ also support such things as not getting rid of coal as energy source or continuing to oppress the gays ...

[Tender Branson]

New Austria EU poll (Research Affairs):

29% ÖVP
27% SPÖ
23% FPÖ (+1)
10% NEOS
  7% Greens
  2% NOW
  2% KPÖ (-1)

Turnout: 47%

[Tender Branson]

My results for Holland (pretty much the same as for the Austrian Wahlkabine):

[Tender Branson]

European Parliament-made ad (on YouTube/Facebook it has almost 100 million views):

https://twitter.com/Europarl_EN/status/1121292755576057856

[Tender Branson]

Good new ad from Claudia Gamon from the liberal NEOS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwu5aGMzRiY

+ new posters from them calling for a "United States of Europe" and by portraying Gamon, party-leader Meinl-Reisinger and former independent presidential candidate Irmgard Griss ("girl power").

https://twitter.com/neos_eu/status/1124240158470090754

[Tender Branson]

So the election will be on May 23 to May 26? Are there different voting days depending on country?  Will the counting and results be announce as soon as the voting is over or all on May 26th ?

Yes, different voting days (see chart) and the results are embargoed until Italy closes at 11pm on Sunday.

Though exit polls in the Netherlands and UK etc. will be released when their polls have closed, from what I have read.

[Tender Branson]

I have received my postal ballot yesterday, but I still have no clue which party to vote for.

Still in the running are: SPÖ, Greens and NEOS.

Votes for KPÖ and Europe Now are wasted votes, besides I do not like Voggenhuber (E-Now) and the KPÖ is pretty extreme, like the FPÖ.

[Tender Branson]

With 3 weeks to go, the ÖVP was the last party to start their EU campaign today:





The 10 main ÖVP candidates + Kurz + Weber:

[Tender Branson]

Austria's best pollster, OGM, has released their poll and it has good news for ÖVP, SPÖ and FPÖ:



Turnout: ca. 50% (+5)



https://kurier.at/politik/inland/nur-jeder-zweite-waehlt-eine-partei-aus-ueberzeugung/400484314

[Tender Branson]

I have now decided that I will vote for NEOS and more specifically Claudia Gamon (their frontrunner) this time.

   

The core issues of NEOS regarding Europe are closest to my views (even though I agree on some others more with the SPÖ or the Greens, or even the FPÖ on immigration).

But Claudia Gamon is the only young and female candidate, whereas all the other parties only have old men competing. Besides, I have voted for the SPÖ, ÖVP and Greens in the past already.

Also, Gamon has a good sense of humour:

"Debate with Harald Vilimsky (FPÖ)."



https://www.instagram.com/diegamon

[Tender Branson]

Another 2 election cabins for Austria:

https://wahlhelfer.wienerzeitung.at

https://neuwal.com/barometer/profile.php?b=12&p=0

+ Wahlkabine:

https://wahlkabine.at/eu2019/wahlkabine

[Tender Branson]

The UK has confirmed today that they will officially take part in the EU elections on May 23rd, because ratification of a UK withdrawal agreement would not be possible anymore until then.