🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[palandio]

If equivalent data existed for GB you would be surprised at some elections - not so much 2019 of course, but certainly some others - at how many quite small places would be shaded red. Anyway, relatively few Gemeinden are purely rural in character: as a rule we're talking one or more fair sized towns plus their rural hinterland.

To complicate things further, administrative reforms mostly are responsibility of the states (Ländersache, to use a colloquial term you can hear very often)

NRW was very consequential with its administrative reforms and today there are only 396 Gemeinden left, with an average population of 45,000, a median population of 21,000, an average area of 86 km² and a median area of 75 km².

Rhineland-Palatinate on the other hand still has 2,305 Gemeinden, with an average population of 1,800, an median population of 560, an average area of 8.6 km² and a median area of 5.75 km². Many administrative tasks are delegated to the Verbandsgemeinden that comprise a number of neighboring Gemeinden.

These massive differences of course affect the viability of Gemeinden as a useful level for statistics. Just look at NRW and Rhineland-Palatinate on the map above, they are really difficult to compare. It's clear that for official statistics like electoral statistics this is what you get by default, but in other areas professional users have switched to other aggregations like postal codes when possible (in the case of electoral statistics it's of course basically impossible).

[palandio]

See also

"Why is East Frisia so red?"
https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=452537.0

By the way there is a lot to "tradition". Historical reasons form party allegiance. Party allegiance forms political convictions. Political convictions influence voting behaviour. Voting behaviour on the local level influences local politics, local politics influences what is considered "middle-of-the-road" etc. In most places electoral "tradition" plays a bigger role than in today's US and even there it keeps lurking behind every corner.

One point that is highly discutible but that may play a role is that Germany has the Greens that function as what comes closest to an American idea of "liberal" or "progressive" which might make it easier for the SPD to be perceived as a party that is socially "middle-of-the-road", focused on bread-and-butter issues and cares for the "simple man".

[palandio]

Do you think some young people will vote for the CDU when they get older?
If not, the CDU is in a serious trouble

In the past I believed in "people becoming more conservative when they get older", but others on atlas prompted me to take a closer look at the representative electoral statistics from past elections and I saw that historically evidence is very thin. (If you count the FDP as right-of-center for which there are good justifications then the vote of young people actually was ideologically not very far from the average this time.)

On the other hand party allegiance in general is indeed decreasing, particularly among younger voters, but not only. Hence in principle young people could vote for the CDU in future. Greens and FDP have good reasons not to take the youth vote for granted.

But the disproportionately huge losses of the CDU among young voters didn't come by accident. A big majority of young voters apparently felt that the CDU cared about them less than about everything else. To change that the CDU would have to change and currently you can get serious doubt that it is capable of that.

[palandio]

[palandio]

Well, maybe it would make sense to make another map with the Free Voters separated from the other "Others", because they seem to dominate a lot of what is going on here, but whatever...

(Btw as anyone can see, I'm using Al's fabulous constituency map as a base map. I assume that as long as this remains within the Atlas forum, the watermark remains and the map content is fine, this meets his approval.)

[palandio]

FDP secretary-general Volker Wissing has said that they're planning to wrap up the coalition negotiations until the end of November with the election and inauguration of Olaf Scholz as Chancellor intended for the week of December 6.

December 6 is Saint Nicholas Day.

Saint Nicholas wears red and transfers money to the poor, like the social democrats

It should be noted that it's a very common custom for children in Germany to polish their boots on the eve of St. Nicholas' Day and set them outside in order for Saint Nicholas to fill them with candy - providing they have been good and virtuous all throughout the year. 🍬👢🍭

Saint Nicholas seems to have a special importance in Germany when it comes to entering and leaving coalitions.

Remember "Am Nikolaus ist GroKo-Aus" (="On Saint Nicholas day comes the end of the Grand Coalition")? (cit. the chairwoman of the Bavarian chapter of the Jusos, i.e. the SPD youth organization, November 24, 2019, shortly after Esken and Walter-Borjans were elected SPD chairs)

[palandio]

Why has Linke lost so much ground in Thuringen since the last election. They took over 30% in 2019

Most state polling tends to look quite a lot like national polling and only properly reflects the popularity of state governments as the election approaches, and Die Linke are of course polling poorly on a national level. How much they can claw back won’t become clear until over a year from now.

And there is now a swing voter segment of ca. 15% in the Eastern states that in the run-up to a state election goes to whichever party is most likely to beat the AfD, usually the governor‘s party. Conditions are probably that the governor is reasonably popular and that there is a fair chance of beating the AfD.

[palandio]

Or to quote from an interview that Rackete gave to DER SPIEGEL on that occassion:
"This directional dispute among the Left (Party) has long since been decided. You filed the divorce papers but still live in the same house."

It was only a matter of time, but it's fascinating to see how fast the poles are drifting apart. It also makes sense particularly now that the Greens are governing and necessarily compromising, so there could be space for a more radical alternative. At the same time if the Left relegates economic, welfare and labor issues to second fiddle it might chase away the small rest of its "traditional" voter base who can then go to Wagenknecht; or to the SPD, if they don't like Putinphilia etc. and are ready to reconcile with the Agenda party.

[palandio]

Why would CDU and AFD loose voters to BSW?! And not SPD, Grune and Linke?!

SPD and Greens don't lose voters to BSW because who currently intends to vote for SPD and Greens is generally content with them and the government, and if there is discontent among these voters, it is certainly not that kind of discontent that BSW would be able to address. BSW on the other hand is a protest party. Now I would say that a relevant share of BSW sympathizers have been SPD or Green voters at some in the past, but not anymore.

If you look at the general right-shift in German polls and the recent state elections, you must come to the conclusion that some voters who now vote right of center or even far-right, in the past have voted left of center. This doesn't mean that the CDU or the AfD are left-wing parties. And similarly just because a party wins over voters from the right doesn't necessarily mean that it is a right-wing party.

Also what Oryxslayer writes: A new party that mobilizes former non-responders/non-voters reduces all other parties' percentages, but particularly the strongest parties' percentages (particularly CDU/CSU, but also AfD).

[palandio]

Former president of the Verfassungsschutz (Germany's domestic intelligence agency) Hans-Georg Maaßen has announced that he will turn the Werteunion (Values Union), initially founded as an (unrecognized) internal faction of CDU/CSU, into a proper party. The political position will be to the right of CDU/CSU and it will be open towards coalitions with the AfD. It will try to run e.g. in the Thuringian state election on September 1, 2024, where Maaßen is trying to form an alliance with other right-wing opposition parties and politicians. Maybe also other elections, e.g. the European elections.


Call me sceptical. This will most likely turn out to be another "head birth" of a certain milieu to the right of CDU/CSU. Yes, the initial AfD was in some respect a similar project, but it only got successful because it was already then supported by the far-right which is now firmly in the hand of the AfD and has no reason to switch. Bernd's Lucke Wir Bürger (until 2023 LKR, until 2016 ALFA) has always achieved humiliatingly low results.

On the other hand who thinks that the Traffic Lights coalition's politics are too left-wing, but generally values stability and democracy, will continue to vote for the CDU/CSU, particularly in opposition.

In the past some support might have come from right-wing soft-FDP voters, but they are long gone.

The Free Voters have shown that there is some potential in this political sector, but it's limited (2-4% federally). The Free Voters also have the advantage of being not obviously neo-liberal, rooted in local and regional politics and (apart from Hubert Aiwanger's recent positioning) much more ambiguously positioned on the spectrum between Center and Right. Maaßen might want to integrate them into his political project, but they won't want.

Wagenknecht on the other hand is mostly targeting disappointed voters that voted for left of center parties at some point in the past. Differently from Maaßen she's Anti-Western, economically much more to the left, and also less (ethnic) nationalist and less socially conservative.


Don't get me wrong. The whole "conservative" school of thought is relevant in Germany, there is a whole mediatic space spanning from the CDU/CSU's and FDP's right wing to the "moderate" wing of the AfD. The electoral market just doesn't seem to be there at the moment. Parties with superficial similarities that currently have measurable support, have this support because they are not like Maaßen's project. The mediatic/intellectual right-wing milieu in my opinion is better advised not to focus on one (probably failing) party and instead keep its influence on all of them.

[palandio]

Former president of the Verfassungsschutz (Germany's domestic intelligence agency) Hans-Georg Maaßen has announced that he will turn the Werteunion (Values Union), initially founded as an (unrecognized) internal faction of CDU/CSU, into a proper party.

[...]

It's clearly meant to replace the dead FDP.

[...]

That would make sense. In the past many votes for the FDP came from disaffected CDU/CSU voters during Grand Coalition times. But now CDU/CSU are in opposition, so the timing is a bit unlucky.
And the FDP was also able to attract unaffiliated voters from a wide political range who wanted to express discontent (e.g. with lockdowns in 2021) but not rock the boat too much.
The FDP has often been depicted by its adversaries as economically far right, but at most a minority faction within the FDP really is. Maaßen's project on the other hand is set to be much more to the right than the FDP on all issues, including economics. It will therefore in my opinion lack some of the appeal that the FDP had to many unaffiliated voters. Germany is not Argentina and right libertarianism and paleo-conservatism are still fringe.

[palandio]

Two questions about the new parties:

1) BSW seems like a very serious effort, and one which is hitting double-digits in some polls. Is it likely to just replace Linke overall, at least on the federal level where Linke has struggled to hit the threshold overall? Also, since it is not a direct successor to the SED/PDS, is it likely to have an easier time forming coalitions with the other left-wing parties than Linke itself did, or do the personalities running it mean that's not actually a guarantee at all?

Replace in which way? Electorally there would definitely be some overlap with the Linke of some years ago, although less progressive/alternative and more generic populist.

It has declared that it is open for coalitions with SPD and Linke, but at least in the short term I would take this with a grain of salt. Foreign policy has replaced the SED past as the primary reason why the Linke has been (federally) not coalition-able in recent years, and BSW represents exactly the anti-Western wing. With Linke there may also be bad blood. With the Greens there would be difficulties since many of Wagenknecht's statements go explicitly against the Greens and the policies that they represent. Interestingly I read about BSW being a potential coalition partner for the CDU in the East on the local or regional level. Still rather unlikely, but not completely impossible. BSW might also prefer to stay in opposition like Wagenknecht's wing did while they were still part of the Linke.

2) WU doesn't seem like a very serious effort, given that parties in the space between CDU and AfD have consistently failed to take off, but in the past all such parties have been founded by AfD dissidents, and so have not had much appeal to CDU voters who might be leery of the AfD's associations. Does a former Verfassungsschutz director get around that problem, or is he not actually well-known enough to do so? Also, if there's lots of demand for a further-but-not-that-far right party, why has FW only taken off in certain Landtage and not federally? Why wouldn't Maaßen join FW, or form some sort of tacit alliance with them? This feels like it's purpose is just to divide the right-wing vote (...which may indeed be its purpose, I guess).

I think that BSW and WU are similar in the sense that their founders and their supporters take them absolutely seriously.
Maaßen is relatively well-known, but much of that comes from his time after being in office. Now if he would find a couple of say, former CDU/CSU ministers, former federal judges, or the like, this might change things. But instead he is associating with youtube economists, gold sellers, etc.
Shortly before the AfD's foundation in 2013 there were ideas to instead enter the FW and turn it into something similar. But I think that it wouldn't have worked in the same way. The FW wouldn't have wanted. The Bavarian FW are a product of Bavarian particularism in the tradition of BBB (Bavarian Peasants' League) and the post-WWII Bavaria Party.

Rather that dividing the right-wing vote I think that Maaßen's goal is to enable right-wing coalitions. I just don't think that his project will contribute to this.

[palandio]

BSW hitting double digits in the poll shows what people want from the Left.

BSW, which split from Die Linke, has been described as a far-left / left-wing / left-conservative party, mixing the traditional economic left-wing stances with more conservative stances on social/cultural issues.

Which means, this party is bound to steal voters from AfD in Eastern Germany while also reviving the left after Die Linke got only 4,9% in last German election. A breath of fresh air.

You can compare the poll numbers with the previous poll that didn’t have BSW:

Forschungsgruppe Wahlen - December 14th

Union (Center-Right) - 32%
AfD (Far-Right) - 22%
SPD (Center-Left) - 14%
Grune (Green) - 14%
FDP (Center-Right) - 5%
Die Linke (Left) - 4%
FW (Euroskeptical Center-Right) - 3%

Forschungsgruppe Wahlen - January 11th

Union - 27% (-5)
AfD - 18% (-4)
SPD - 14% (NC)
BSW (NEW, Left) - 14% (+14)
Grune - 12% (-2)
FDP - 4% (-1)
Die Linke - 3% (-1)
FW - 3% (NC)

That said, I wouldn’t underestimate the novelty aspect eventually dying down closer to the election considering all others fell. It will be interesting to see how these BSW numbers develop, if they’re able to grow even more as their name and platform gets out in people’s minds or if they go to similar numbers as the smallest parties as novelty excitement dies down.

1. The results from January 11th quoted above are not from Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, but from INSA. The Forschungsgruppe Wahlen results were:
CDU/CSU - 31% (-1)
AfD - 22% (NC)
Grüne - 14% (NC)
SPD - 13% (-1)
FDP - 4% (-1)
Linke - 4%
FW - 4% (+1)
BSW - 4% (+4)

2. INSA on January 13th reported two numbers, one without BSW and one with BSW:
CSU/CSU - 30% / 27%
AfD - 22% / 18%
SPD - 15% / 14%
Grüne - 12% / 12%
FDP - 5% / 4%
Linke - 4% / 3%
FW - 3% / 3%
BSW - --- / 14%

3. The difference is probably in the way that the voting intention was asked. The 14% are probably the result of BSW being mentioned explicitly. Methodologically there may be arguments for this when a new party enters the electoral market because many participants may not be aware that the new party is now a valid option. On the other hand a "free" question without trigger is on the long run probably closer to reality. In the end there may be 20 parties or so on the ballot, BSW being just one of them, and there won't be an explicit statement on the top of the ballot "remember that Wagenknecht is included".

4. I think that we might have to wait a few days or weeks until we get reliable results. My impression is that Wagenknecht went for a Linke split-off over a big tent project. This is very reasonable for stability reasons, but it might also limit its electoral potential. Many voters may still be sitting on the fence: They express their sympathies for BSW when asked explicitly, but only then.

[palandio]

Doesn’t seem like there’s been that much of a shift compared to 2021?
https://twitter.com/europeelects/status/1756754692183326883?s=46&t=o2RmfeV6y...

Big if true. I actually expected SPD to tank badly.

Almost certainly not true, or a misrepresentation of some notional intermediate results (i.e. what remains when you subtract the 2021 results of the re-voting precincts from the total result in 2021).

DER SPIEGEL reports (with 79% of the re-voting precincts counted):
Greens 28.2% (+1.0)
SPD 14.7% (-7.7)
CDU 19.8% (+6.0)
Left 12.9% (+1.0)
FDP 3.3% (-5.7)
AfD 12.9% (+5.8 ).

Seems closer to reality. But let's see.