German Federal Election - Sept. 24 - Results Thread

[palandio]

Is there anything in Munich today that would explain the rise in turnout ?

79.8% with 2 hours to go. That is up by 16.6% compared with 2013 (!!!).

A rise in turnout of these dimensions would mean a disproportionate rise where turnout had been low in 2013, i.e. the least rich quarters of Munich like Neuperlach, Hasenbergl, Harthof, etc.

[palandio]

Europe Elects:

Germany, exit poll (leak, unconfirmed):

CDU/CSU-EPP: 35.5%
SPD-S&D: 20.5%
AfD-ENF: 14.5%
LINKE-LEFT: 10%
FDP-ALDE: 10%
GRÜNE-G/EFA: 8%

Others at 1.5%. That's way too low.

[palandio]

I just came home. Is there a map of results by municipality or region? I'm sorry if this was posted already.

Official map, but seems to lag behind slightly:
https://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/bundestagswahlen/2017/ergebnisse/wahlatlas.html#(wahlatlas-0f91b957-d02f-40bd-a3ae-865d9a48b1f7/thema_ERSTSTIMMENMEHRHEIT_/haeufigkeiten/wahlkreise/)

[palandio]

That corner in Bavaria which was also where many asylum seekers entered Germany while crossing through europe has 15%+ for AfD in contrast to other parents of non-metropolitan Bavaria where its 10-14%.

Well, this might be a small part of the explanation. The bigger part of the explanation would be a significant part of the population that has been swinging over the last 130 years between CSU (and its predecessors), abstention (e.g. in 2013) and various populist, centrist and far-right outfits (Bavarian Peasants' League, NSDAP, Bavaria Party, The Republicans, Free Voters and now the AfD). And historically being dirt-poor, backwards and living with an inferiority complex.

[palandio]

But why does Petry do this? Because her ego was hurt?

Despite moving AfD more to the right after deposing Lucke she felt AfD was way too right wing this year and said she wanted to make AfD more palpable towards being allowed into coalitions by moderating a little back. But her party disagreed and stuck to its course.  Im guessing she waited until after the election to announce she was sitting as an independent because the leader leaving during the election campaign would of made the party lose support due to inner fighting.

Well, that's obviously what she says, but I'm wondering about the real reason. Petry herself had made AfD much more extreme and thereby completely uncoalitionable already.

The reasons why Petry leaves the AfD caucus are highly debateable. I personally am amazed how so many non-Afd-sympathizers were ready to buy into her story from the moment she lost the power struggle against Gauland, Meuthen and Co. I mean, she was leading a far-right putsch in an alreading right-leaning party and suddenly people believe her just because it fits into their narrative.
Petry, instigated by her husband Pretzell, wanted to transform the AfD into a leader-centered party like many right-wing populist parties in Europe are. This concept doesn't work for the AfD and she should have known her own party better. She also was at odds with the rest of the leadership (some of them historically more "moderate" than her like Meuthen) for mainly personal reasons.

[palandio]

So whats the deal with the SPD winning those clusters of directmandat seats in rural parts of Niedersachsen and Hesse?

The red area in Southern Lower Saxony is where VW and Audi are located. Furthermore, Sigmar Gabriel's and Thomas Oppermann's constituencies lie in that area.

Audi? Seriously?! VW (Wolfsburg) is located to the north-eastern end of the mentioned area. The SPD strength in most of Southern Lower Saxony has nothing to do with it. Gabriel and particularly Oppermann are just two SPD politicians with few effect outside their own constituencies.
(Sorry if that sounds rude but I've read so much hot take analysis on the atlas that sometimes I can get impatient.)

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Yes, protestantism (or rather the absence [except for Hildesheim and a small part of the Eichsfeld] of historically SPD-impeding catholicism) plays a role in Northern Hesse, Southern Lower Saxony and neighboring parts of Westfalia and Lippe. One might of course ask why the areas north of Hannover are slightly less SPD-friendly. Well, they're flatter, traditionally less industrial and former strongholds of the (conservative) Guelf loyalists.
(And not everything needs to be compared to the USA. I our case the comparison is also inappropriate because Hannover, Braunschweig, Kassel and Salzgitter are even less conservative than the surrounding.)

[palandio]

What is it with the SPD being so strong in the North of Hesse and southeast of Lower Saxony.  Any particular reason or is that where Schulz from there?

No, Schulz' hometown Würselen (which he mentioned like 3000 times during the campaign ) is in the extreme West of Germany, near Aachen.

CDU and SPD geographical voting patterns in Western Germany can still be explained to a large degree by history and tradition and therefore in the end often by religious denomination.
Until the foundation of the second German Empire there was a very vague spectrum of parties in the different German states which can be broadly described in terms of different shades of conservativism and liberalism and which were largely politicians' parties. The second German Empire saw the rise of two mass parties rooted in milieus of society. The first one was the Catholic Center Party which sought to represent Catholics in general. The second one was the SPD which sought to represent workers (particularly industrial workers) in general. Competition with the Center Party was the reason that the SPD was not able to grow a base in many catholic areas in the same way like in protestant areas. After WWI first the USPD and then the KPD split from the SPD. The Bavarian People's Party split from the Center. But their respective milieus (that of practicing Catholics and left-oriented workers respectively) remained strong and resilient. From 1930 on the majority of voters not affiliated with the Catholic or the red milieu went to the NSDAP, while the political Catholics and SPD/KPD (the latter two seen as communicating vessels) remained largely stable (with notable exceptions). After WWII the new super-denominational CDU/CSU expanded to the protestant areas of Western Germany to include protestant conservatives, but most of its strongest areas are still the old catholic Center strongholds. (The first chancellor of Western Germany, Konrad Adenauer (CDU), had been an important Center politician during the Weimar republic and most other CDU founding members had been in the Center as well.)

Northern Hesse and Southern Lower Saxony are majority protestant, somehow industrial and the SPD was able to get a foothold there already during the Empire and the Weimar republic.

[palandio]

Guelfs? As in the pro-Pope faction in Italian medieaval wars?

Guelfs as in House of Welf, the royal house of Hanover which was annexed by Prussia in 1866.

The name Guelfs for the pro-Pope faction stems from the medieval rivalry between the House of Waiblingen (also known as Staufen) and the House of Welf who at some point were the two most powerful dynasties in the whole Holy German Empire. When the House of Welf had lost the power struggle and been confined to Lower Saxony the name Guelfi was used to designate anyone opposed to the House of Waiblingen (which was pronounced Ghibellini by the Italians).

[palandio]

1. That's Lüchow-Dannenberg - Lüneburg; Lüneburg is a university town and the surrounding countryside, the Wendland, has a certain Alternative undercurrent and is a traditional Green stronghold.

Yes. And one of the reasons (if not the main reason) for the alternative undercurrent is the nuclear waste disposal site in Gorleben.

[palandio]

No.

David's bonus map is the 2013 map, not a 2013/2017 swing map.

Yes, it is true that Bavaria outside of Franconia and the Munich metro area has relatively strong AfD results, which is probably related to being the area of the main influx and the area that had to shoulder the first peaks of the emergency in 2015. But also to right-wing inclinations in general being historically more prevalent than in many other regions of Germany.

But the numbers just don't let you see e.g. the Kufstein border crossing:
Kiefersfelden had an AfD result of 14.35% (+9.06), completely normal for a Southern Bavarian rural town.
The constituency of Rosenheim had an AfD result of 13.86% (+8.90), again completely normal for Bavaria outside of Franconia and the Munich metro area.

[palandio]

Apologies if already asked, but does anyone have precinct level results for Hamburg?

https://www.bundestagswahl-hh.de/wahlen.php?site=left/gebiete&wahltyp=2#index.php?site=right/ergebnis&wahl=192&gebiet=1&typ=1&stimme=2

Even better: There's an interactive atlas:
http://statistik-nord.de/fileadmin/maps/election_2017_hh_btw/
First I thought the data were for districts only, but they have precinct level results (Wahlbezirke), too.

[palandio]

No.

David's bonus map is the 2013 map, not a 2013/2017 swing map.

Oh, sorry!

No need to be sorry. It's just that we all are much better at quick over-interpretations than at double-checking. :-P

Do we have any crosstabs in the exitpoll by gender, class, occupation, ethnicity etc?

The official Representative electoral statistics (by gender and age) will probably be available by January 2018. Here is the one from 2013:
https://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/bundestagswahlen/2013/ergebnisse/repraesentative-wahlstatistik.html

Infratest dimap for ARD:
Gender/education/bad economic situation/late deciders: http://wahl.tagesschau.de/wahlen/2017-09-24-BT-DE/umfrage-werwas.shtml
Age: http://wahl.tagesschau.de/wahlen/2017-09-24-BT-DE/umfrage-alter.shtml
Class/occupation: http://wahl.tagesschau.de/wahlen/2017-09-24-BT-DE/umfrage-job.shtml

Forschungsgruppe Wahlen for ZDF:
https://wahltool.zdf.de/wahlergebnisse/2017-09-24-BT-DE.html?i=1

[palandio]

Always interesting to see how the East-West divide is still extreme in most parts of the city, but not at all in the inner city: Electorally Friedrichshain and Prenzlauer Berg on the eastern side cannot be easily told apart from Kreuzberg, (Northern) Neukölln and parts of Wedding and Moabit on the western side. These quarters all have weak CDU, FDP and AfD and strong Greens and Linke.