German Elections & Politics

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Looking back at past results, it would appear that this is the first time that the PDS/Left has been defeated in north Marzahn. It was one of the few areas of the city where they led in 1990. Also the first time since 1990 that they've been beaten in north Hohenschönhausen and north Hellersdorf.

This is also the first time since 1979 that the SPD have won the constituency containing Gropiusstadt but that's basically a boundary change issue. CDU also lose in the Mariendorf seat (middle of Tempelhof borough) for the first time since then (or 1971: in 1979 there were two and they won one). Mayor Müller holds the seat immediately north so that's probably a factor.

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Yeah, not terribly meaningful but pretty.

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Apologies if this has already been mentioned, but what is the story behind Wahlkreis Mitte 2? It seems to have much higher Linke, and lower Green shares than the surrounding districts. This appears doubly so for adjacent Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg 4.

A really good answer to this was given ages ago, so let's just copy it here:

Not sure if social housing is the right word. Any new building project larger than two or three housing units in the DDR was by the state, basically. It's not that private homeownership or even private renting was illegal or anything, it's just that subsidized credit for it wasn't available at all, with inevitable results (read: decaying inner cities. That by the 80s and 90s often turned into artsy, if at least initially in a very downmarket way, enclaves).

The area were dealing with was bombed quite flat and thus has a lot of 50s and 60s government-built housing. Being centrally located and not of pisspoor quality, it's quite "desirable", in the low turnover sense of the word.

On the residents:

The same people who lived there twenty years ago when the world was still whole and the wall was still standing, of course.

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Larger version available on request.

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Their approach ist quite interesting. The  raw data come from SpiegelOnline users who register, fill out some demographic questions and so on. And then all of these data get weighted with some secret sauce. So no traditional pollster who tries to get a representative sample of persons, but an innovative method that claims to work even with heavily non-representative raw data.

oh dear

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But that's probably the future of the polling industry. Which means that polling failures will become increasingly frequent, needless to say.

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Of course the question is whether this can be sustained or even turned into some sort of momentum, but it's certainly a shift.

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Worth noting that Schulz can credibly distance himself from some of the more electorally toxic elements of the Schröder era, and that stuff has been a big drag in recent years. Still, it's early days (i.e. all Schulz has done so far is establish himself as a potential serious challenger) so it's important not to let speculation and prediction get out of hand, but nevertheless it is always an error to underestimate the strength of the SPD 'brand', even if maybe it hasn't been particularly well looked after in recent years. 

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Important to note that these are quite old-fashioned categories and definitions; you have to be careful not to allow the names given to the categories to mislead you into wider generalisations than are appropriate.

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So the recent pattern of the parties of popular State PMs surprisingly overperforming continues.

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This result would be quite impressive for CDU as my understanding is that Kraft is fairly popular. 

She is (though not to the extent that she was) but the state government in general is not.

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Interesting swings in this election.

Not as much as you'd assume; the CDU campaign last time was a complete fiasco.

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Are the conservative parts of Berlin...

Such things don't really exist.

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If we look at polling since the start of September...

CDU-CSU: highest poll 38%, lowest 34% - most around 36% to 37%.
SPD: highest poll 25%, lowest 20% - most around 22% to 23%.
Left: highest poll 11%, lowest 8% - most around 9% to 10%.
Greens: highest poll 9%, lowest 6% - most around 7% to 8%.
FDP: highest poll 11%, lowest 7% - most around 8% to 9%.
AfD: highest poll 12%, lowest 8% - most around 10% to 11%.

Results in 2013: CDU-CSU 42, SPD 26, Left 9, Greens 8, FDP 5, AfD 5

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What exactly happened to the SPD? I haven't been following the election closely but I remember eralier in the year it looked like they actually had a chance?

There's a certain percentage (quite large actually) of the German electorate that votes SPD when they look to have a realistic chance of forming an alternative government, but does not when it does not. When it - briefly - looked that maybe Schulz was a credible challenger the SPDs ratings surged; when it became clear that he wasn't, they fell back down to where they were before. It's difficult, though, to pose as an alternative to the government when you are part of it.

Though it's worth noting - and probably you'd not be able to tell from the tone of comments in this thread - that if current polling is accurate (not certain!), the CDU-CSU is actually on track to lose more support from 2013.

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Polls released over the past two days...

GMS: CDU-CSU 37, SPD 22, AfD 10, FDP 9, Left 9, Greens 8
FG Wahlen: CDU-CSU 36, SPD 21.5, AfD 11, FDP 10, Left 8.5, Greens 8
SPON: CDU-CSU 36, SPD 22, AfD 10, Left 10, FDP 10, Greens 8
Forsa: CDU-CSU 36, SPD 22, AfD 11, FDP 9.5, Left 9.5, Greens 7
YouGov: CDU-CSU 36, SPD 23, Left 10, AfD 10, FDP 9, Greens 7
Emnid: CDU-CSU 35, SPD 22, AfD 11, Left 10, FDP 9, Greens 8
INSA: CDU-CSU 34, SPD 21, AfD 13, Left 11, FDP 9, Greens 8

Have rounded except for when figures are given as X.5

And also there's YouGov's model which has...

CDU-CSU 36, SPD 25, AfD 12, Left 10, FDP 7, Greens 7

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The next election isn't for another four years anyway.

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Why? Ordinary people don't pay attention to parliamentary procedure.

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Important not to confuse coalition formation at state and federal levels. The former in general is a lot easier; minority governments aren't unknown (not common of course and all attempts will be made to avoid them, but...), SPD/CDU (or Green/CDU for that matter) coalitions aren't as problematic, and there's more room for arrangements between the SPD and the Left.

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Minority governments are a no-no at federal level for... er... historical reasons, rather than present-day practicalities. The way these things go that will eventually change, but it's the sort of thing that is impossible until it isn't.

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I will be a cold day in hell before Germany gets a minority government...

There's a first time for everything, so I wouldn't rule it out categorically. But at this stage there's no certainty about anything.