2009 State and Federal elections in Germany

[minionofmidas]

What constituency be "V"?

Frankfurt 5. Bornheim, North End, East End. Much the smallest in area. And much the greenest in election results.

Why is there no CDU candidate?

There is one. It's just the only constituency with a new candidate from them.
Was that really that ambiguous?

[Middle-aged Europe]

A little under six hours until the beginning of the first real Superwahljahr (super election year) since 1994: A federal election, an European election, five state elections, eight local elections and the election of a president by the Federal Assembly.

w00t!

[BenNebbich]

i fear 2009 will be a nightmare for the spd.

[Hash]

A little under six hours until the beginning of the first real Superwahljahr (super election year) since 1994: A federal election, an European election, five state elections, eight local elections and the election of a president by the Federal Assembly.

w00t!

Fun and entertaining year ahead for sure

[minionofmidas]

Ballot Design

They've been looking like that since about forever. Color varies by constituency (not sure if they've remained the same throughout). Examples are from Offenbach and Wiesbaden East. Obviously the "Muster" bit doesn't belong.

[Lief 🗽]

Pirate Party (an anti copyright laws party First ran last year, when they got 0.3%. )

I've heard they are polling at 7-21% right now in Sweden ...

A Swedish poll I saw said they were winning 18-29 year old males (which should be their core demographic) and they might win a seat.

[Tender Branson]

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister of Thuringia - Dieter Althaus (CDU) - was badly injured while skiing in Austria. He crashed with a Slovak woman, who died on the way to hospital. Althaus suffered severe head injuries, brain bleeding and is now in coma.

In other news, Merkel is still rated the politician with the best leadership qualities. According to a new Forsa poll, Merkel got 63 points on a scale from 0-100, with Foreign-Minister Steinmeier second with 60 points.

[minionofmidas]

There won't be a "Tv duel", rather there'll be a discussion with all five leading candidates (Koch, Schäfer-Gümbel, Hahn, Al Wazir, van Ooyen).
Three days before the election.

[Tender Branson]

New Infratest-dimap poll for Hesse:

CDU: 42% (47 seats)
SPD: 24% (27 seats)
FDP: 13% (15 seats)
Greens: 13% (15 seats)
The Left: 5% (6 seats)
Others: 3%

Strong majority for CDU-FDP.

[Hash]

Election.de projection:

[minionofmidas]

Comparing with 2003 in regards to the extent of SPD/Green vote splitting (probably a reasonable assumption), I would hold that Frankfurt V is basically an SPD certainty at current polling, but whatever.

[Franzl]

I'm becoming cautiously optimistic that we'll get the CDU/FDP majority....but in recent times at least, I like to keep my expectations low, considering how the CDU/CSU tends to be overestimated in the pre-election polls.

[Middle-aged Europe]

SPIEGEL now reports that Thuringian minister-president Dieter Althaus could be charged with  involuntary manslaughter in Austria because of the woman that was killed in his skiing accident last week. The woman's family is also planning to sue him for damages. The Thuringian CDU's position has always been that Althaus will continue to be the party's top candidate for the August 30 election.

[Tender Branson]

New Hesse poll by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen:

CDU: 41%
SPD: 25%
FDP: 13%
Greens: 13%
The Left: 5%
Others: 3%

[Franzl]

New Hesse poll by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen:

CDU: 41%
SPD: 25%
FDP: 13%
Greens: 13%
The Left: 5%
Others: 3%

just give 1% from the Linke to the SPD, and I'll be in heaven.

[Franzl]

Lewis, what do you think about district votes in Darmstadt-Dieburg II?

I'd guess something like.....CDU +10%?

[minionofmidas]

Lewis, what do you think about district votes in Darmstadt-Dieburg II?

I'd guess something like.....CDU +10%?

That's the eastern bit, right. That was one of the more surprising SPD gains of the night last year around (and, as such, a certain pickup now) - somewhat similar seats (around Hanau, for example) tended to stay with the CDU.
Wasn't it the Education Moron's own seat or something?

(now goes check a few things)
Oh, it wasn't. Got the seats of the two female (in one case former) cabinet members from the Darmstadt area confused, I see. Well, she doesn't seem to have any sort of personal vote either.

            List 2008          List 2003          Direct 2008      Direct 2003
CDU    22.334    37,5    29.552    50,6    23.899    40,3    31.765    55,1
SPD    22.553    37,9    16.735    28,7    24.108    40,7    17.676    30,7

10 points sounds like a low estimate, really. It somewhat depends what all those predicted extra FDP voters are doing with their direct vote, of course. I don't claim to be any good at predicting the bourgeois camp's internal dynamics. (unlike on the two group's relative sizes, especially as a function of turnout. And unlike the left half of the country's internal dynamics.)

[Franzl]

I actually wanted to vote for the CDU woman for the district vote....but her "campaign ads" in the mail gave me a pretty good reason not to....

basically....vote for me because I'm not quite as bad as the SPD....

[Hash]

Random question. Why is northern Hesse strongly SPD (overall)? I'd assume it's an industrialized area?

I assume all those safe CDU districts around Frankfurt are generally wealthy districts?

[Franzl]

Random question. Why is northern Hesse strongly SPD (overall)? I'd assume it's an industrialized area?

I assume all those safe CDU districts around Frankfurt are generally wealthy districts?

northern Hesse is also quite poor.

[minionofmidas]

Random question. Why is northern Hesse strongly SPD (overall)? I'd assume it's an industrialized area?

I assume all those safe CDU districts around Frankfurt are generally wealthy districts?

To the West, Northwest, and to a lesser extent the Southeast especially, yeah. Some of the wealthiest bits of Germany (along with the suburbs south of Munich.)

Northern Hesse (there are areas somewhat like it elsewhere) is a complicated matter. It didn't use to be Social Democratic. Protestant, not affluent, and not dominated by gentry, these areas tended to vote mostly conservative or national liberal in the Kaiserreich and the Weimar era but occasionally loved themselves a strange right-wing protest tradition (antisemitism, nationalism and anti-Marxism were part of the mix. But so was saving the small business owner from rich nationally-operating competition, the lender from his creditor. And just a general diffuse vibe of being an insurgent, opposition, "out" group.) Obviously they liked themselves some Nazis, too - they got some of their best results here.

How these places came to vote SPD in the 50s is hard to comprehend. Guess it just was the only acceptable opposition still around. The early years of the FRG, it looked like it would be quite the arch-Catholic, Rhenanian, Pro-French dominated country. Small surprise they didn't like that, really (especially the Catholic bit).

(Mind you, there was a Socialist tradition around Kassel too. Which is where the SPD is still strongest now.)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

IIRC the FDP won the odd single-member constituency in that area until the late '50's or so.

[Hash]

IIRC the FDP won the odd single-member constituency in that area until the late '50's or so.

I have some Bundestag maps, atleast.

1949


1953


1957

[minionofmidas]

The FDP did outpoll the CDU statewide in 1949-54. (shakes head and grins at SPD winning Hochtaunus, or whatever it was called then, in 49. Looks absurd now.)

[minionofmidas]

Here be Kaiserreich era maps (oh, how I long for any source with constituency-by-constituency results, rather than lists of winners. None seems to exist, in print or over the net. The Constituencies remained unchanged throughout, so this should be an easy task... The guy who made this site looked at official gov't publications from the relevant election years.)

http://www.wahlen-in-deutschland.de/akurtwalg.htm

Links to years at the top.
Man, the "German Socials" rock northern Hesse from 1890 on.
1912 is the first time the SPD wins in Kassel. They'd been holding seats in the Rhein-Main area since 1881.