🇩🇪 German state & local elections

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Today marks 7 weeks until the election....which means it was time to put up election posters!

We started at 17.30 and beat the other parties for the best real estate on the lamp posts. Here's Hakan Demir helping us on Sonnenallee:

 

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

News from the Berlin election:

The CDU and Die Linke hired outside companies to hang up its large billboards, as is normal.

However, Die Linke's billboards ended up in the completely wrong neighborhoods, e.g. billboards for Reinickendorf (suburban northwest) ended up in Neukölln (inner-city southeast) with the wrong candidates

The CDU somehow delivered several billboards from the September 2021 election to their hired company, and so Armin Laschet's face appeared to Berliners

Seems that nobody is truly ready to compentently run this city

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

PS: So, you won't tell me if you know Simon Bull, who posted the very same picture in his Insta story that you posted here?

I don't know who that is, no. Or perhaps I do know him, if he is in the Neukölln SPD, because I know a lot of faces without knowing names. I had my own pictures, but they weren't very good or were blurry, and I stole this photo from the group chat from a woman, since it was the only good one from Sonnenallee.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Another poll showing CDU leading and SPD and Greens neck-and-neck. This polls shows a slightly higher total for the other parties as well than most polls. But still, everything is very tight.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Berlin Wahl-O-Mat just dropped: https://www.wahl-o-mat.de/berlin2023/app/main_app.html

However, I have to say that this Wahl-O-Mat sucks. Some of the questions are just recycled from other states' elections and there are some critical questions that would relate to Berlin specifically that are missing (e.g. nothing about housing construction policy, nothing about subways, nothing about the 29 Euro public transit ticket, nothing about the overloaded daycares or primary schools, etc.). But it still has some value due to things like whether to complete the A100 or pedestrianize Friedrichstraße in the city center.

To the surprise of absolutely nobody:


I have to say that, while I have been out helping with handing out flyers, working infostands, door-knocking, and attending party meetings as usual, I feel a lot less enthusiastic about this election compared to how I normally feel about election season. Maybe it's the gloomy weather, maybe it's just craziness at work, but I think most of the apathy stems from the fact that barring any acts of God, this is going to be a status quo election. Red-Red-Green certainly will be elected. The real question is are we going to get Giffey staying on as mayor, or have Jarasch? So it's just a symbolic thing for the most part (not denying the influence the mayor has as the leader of the coalition and the state). Also, we're not even starting a new 5-year term, just finishing up the 2021-2026 term.

Finally, even though I am actually very supportive of the SPD Berlin agenda (building offensive for housing and schools, more money for childcare and seniors, the 29 Euro transit ticket combined with the 9 Euro ticket for the poor/students/elderly, remunicipalize Vattenfall's gas and district heating and buy shares in GASAG, finish the A100 but don't expand it further, etc.), it's hard for me to make the case that the SPD should be re-elected considering that 1.) it was an SPD minister overseeing the 2021 election, hence why we have to revote in the first place, and 2.) the SPD has led the government of Berlin for the past 22 years, and yet many things regarding quality of life are disappointing/bad and municipal services can be so unreliable. If we can't even administrate an election properly, why should voters trust us to govern the city for an additional 3.5 years? Thankfully no one has openly challenged me on this question, but I definitely have thought about it quite a bit ever since it became apparent that we may have to have a repeat-election.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

SHOCK POLL puts the SPD back in the lead with just one week to go. Probably an outlier, but other polls have showed the SPD gaining lately, with the Greens and CDU losing. So perhaps not too far-fetched. But we'll see in one week.

and 2.) the SPD has led the government of Berlin for the past 22 years, and yet many things regarding quality of life are disappointing/bad and municipal services can be so unreliable. If we can't even administrate an election properly, why should voters trust us to govern the city for an additional 3.5 years? Thankfully no one has openly challenged me on this question, but I definitely have thought about it quite a bit ever since it became apparent that we may have to have a repeat-election.

Question time! I'm seeing quite a few polls pop up in my feed with Union leads so now it isn't exactly impossible to imagine a non-SPD party coming in first. However R2G will basically always have a majority, so this prompts my questions:

1) Would the current coalition continue even if it loses votes and the first place slot? On one hand you have Germany's political culture and expectations, on the other hand there is nature of this election and it being a repeat with an incumbent coalition already in place.

Usually there is a tradition of the biggest party taking the first shot at trying to form a government, but in this case, all of the RRG parties have said they want to continue the RRG coalition. So there is no real need to give the CDU the first go, and I don't expect it to happen.

2) How much can be blamed on local factors and how much can be blamed on the National situation being bad for the SPD? We've got a situation in national polling that looks like some 2021 SPD voters
  -> Greens and Union, and some 2021 Union and FDP voters going -> AfD. Obviously there's always more under the hood (and I think a lot of this trend is Ukraine-influenced), but the Union, Greens, and AfD are up, with SPD and FDP down. However these trends would suggest a Greens lead in Berlin polling based on past results and alignment of electoral bases, not a Union one. So are all parts of the local R2G catching flack?

This is a difficult question to answer. Usually state elections in Germany do indeed have a backlash against the incumbent parties at the national level, like a midterm effect (this was especially true in the 1990s and 2000s), but as has been noted after previous elections, the past 10 years have shown that the new trend is "incumbents get re-elected". Whether a continuation of RRG but with a mayoral change meets this criteria, is up to the individual. Furthermore, Berlin is a very leftist city, so even if there is frustration with the national government and also with the state government, many voters are not willing to vote CDU like the city was in the 1990s.

Also, the demographics of the city have changed over the past 20-30 years, and the CDU still has a lot of badwill over the 2001 banking scandal, the debtload from which still burdens the city to this day.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

why is the FDP doing so bad in Berlin compared to the AFD and CDU ?, I thought it would do well with "Boba" or socially liberal professionals who seem to be common over there ?

These professionals tend to support the Greens rather than the FDP – in Berlin more than elsewhere. The city is also traditionally left-wing and poorer than Frankfurt or Munich.

There's also a bit of self-selection going on, from what I understand. Berlin in general attracts more left-leaning people while right-leaning people are more likely to avoid it.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Anywho, Morgenpost has compiled a decent run-down of each parties' election platform:


The super-quick rundown of all parties : https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article237447711/berlin-wahl-2023-wahlprogramme-parteien-konflikte-waehler-vergleich.html


SPD: https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article237399065/berlin-wahl-2023-wahlprogramm-spd-buergermeister-senat-parteien.html
CDU: https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article237400849/berlin-wahl-2023-wahlprogramm-cdu-partei-wahlwiederholung-ueberblick.html
Greens: https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article237401409/berlin-wahl-2023-wahlprogramm-gruene-parteien-politiker-koalition.html
Die Linke: https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article237402403/berlin-wahl-2023-linken-wahlprogramm-partei-wahlkampf-klaus-lederer.html
AfD: https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article237430611/berlin-wahl-2023-wahlprogramm-afd-buergermeister-wiederholung.html
FDP: https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article237403313/berlin-wahl-2023-wahlprogramm-fdp-partei-abgeordnetenhaus.html

Once again, given my personal preference for building more housing instead of expropriation, building more subways, having more frequent busses, and building more schools and hiring more teachers, I align most closely with....SPD and CDU. Of course, the last time the CDU governed Berlin, they bankrupted the city, so...

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

RBB reports low voter turnout:

Participation in the repeat election in Berlin was 23.4 percent on Sunday afternoon (12 noon) . As the state returning authority announced on Sunday, 25.1 percent of those entitled to vote had cast their votes by the same time in 2016. There are no real comparative figures from the 2021 election: At that time, only the value for the federal election that was taking place at the same time was determined; this was 27.4 percent.

According to the state returning officer, 341,404 of those entitled to vote in the House of Representatives cast their votes in polling stations by noon. The highest voter turnout was up to 12 p.m. in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district - at 25.7 percent, the lowest in Mitte at 20.3 percent.

Before these figures were announced, state returning officer Stephan Bröchler said he was expecting a turnout of 55 to 60 percent over the entire election day . This assumption is based on conversations he conducted. In the 2021 election, turnout was around 75 percent.

Around 2.43 million people can cast their votes in the repeat elections for the Berlin House of Representatives . That is around 15,800 fewer eligible voters than in the September 2021 election, as the state returning officer announced on Saturday. A polling card had already been issued for around 31 percent of those entitled to vote - i.e. for a postal vote or an early election on site.

Around 2.73 million people are entitled to vote in the district assembly . This number is higher because 16 and 17 year olds as well as foreign EU citizens living in Berlin aged 16 and over can also vote here.

Regarding the mood of Berlin voters:

In the pre-election survey that infratest dimap conducted among several thousand eligible voters between February 6 and 8, only 24 percent of the participants stated that they were satisfied or very satisfied with the work of the SPD, Greens and Left Party. This makes the red-green-red coalition in Berlin by far the most unpopular state government in Germany.

Approval values ​​of 75 percent, as they are for the black-green coalition in Schleswig-Holstein, or the 66 percent approval for the Hamburg Senate are currently out of reach for the Berlin coalition. The government of the capital is even more unpopular than the state government in Bremen, which is second to last nationwide with approval of 34 percent.

Among party supporters, SPD voters are the most satisfied with the current government's policies in Berlin, at 53 percent. Green voters, on the other hand, are mostly dissatisfied with 43 percent approval. However, voters on the Berlin left are particularly disappointed, two-thirds of whom said they were dissatisfied with the Senate's work. The satisfaction of the supporters of the opposition is expectedly low at six to ten percent.

Giffey is not well-liked, but her competition is disliked even more:

On the one hand, 36 percent of those surveyed rate the work of the Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) positively, putting the social democrat ahead of her competitors Kai Wegner (CDU, 23 percent) and Bettina Jarasch (Greens, 19 percent), Klaus Lederer (Left 34 percent), Sebastian Czaja (FDP, 25 percent) and Kristin Brinker (7 percent).

In a nationwide comparison, Giffey is in last place. The heads of government achieved the following values ​​before the last election in the respective federal state: Daniel Günther (Schleswig-Holstein, 75 percent), Manuela Schwesig (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, 71 percent), Winfried Kretschmann (Baden-Württemberg, 71 percent) and Michael Kretschmar (Saxony, 71 percent). In Bremen, which is directly ahead of Berlin in the ranking, Mayor Carsten Sieling (SPD) also had a higher approval rating of 41 percent.

Regarding issues such as expanding the A100 motorway or expropriating large housing companies:

53 percent of those surveyed said the further expansion of the A100 autobahn was right, while 36 percent said it was wrong. Support for the route construction is particularly strong among supporters of the opposition parties CDU (83 percent), FDP (76 percent) and AfD (66 percent), and 59 percent of the SPD voters surveyed also support the project. However, the expansion is unpopular with voters for the Greens (18 percent approval) and Left (26 percent).

45 percent of all respondents across party lines called the expansion of cycle paths at the expense of car traffic the right thing to do. Almost half of Berliners are critical of the project. The expansion of cycle paths is particularly popular with voters from the Greens (92 percent) and the Left (71 percent). Supporters of the Social Democrats were more skeptical on this point, every second SPD voter described the expansion of cycle paths at the expense of car traffic as wrong. The rejection is even clearer among voters from the CDU (81 percent), AfD (77 percent) and FDP (71 percent).

The mood is also mixed with regard to the expropriation of large housing companies . 45 percent of those surveyed think the measure is right, 46 percent reject the project. The biggest advocates of expropriation are voters on the Left (80 percent) and the Greens (60 percent). The supporters of the SPD are just as divided on the expansion of the cycle paths: 45 percent were in favor of expropriations, 48 ​​percent against. Around a third of the voters for the AfD (37 percent) and the liberal-business Berlin FDP (34 percent) would like the expropriation of large housing companies. This measure is least popular among voters for the CDU, of whom 72 percent are against it .

https://www.rbb24.de/politik/wahl/abgeordnetenhaus/agh-2023/beitraege/berlin-vorwahlbefragung-infratest-berlinwahl-2023.html

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Si what sort of government gets formed? Do we get some sort of CDU led coalition with either SPD or Greens or do we get an SPD-Green-Linke government?

RRG is still the most likely, but CDU-SPD is the next most likely given the horrible result for the SPD.

CDU-Green is not at all likely in Berlin. The Berlin Greens are very leftist, and deeply hostile to the CDU on issues like housing and transit policy. This is not BaWü where the Greens are basically a centrist party.

The CDU and SPD have large overlap on things like housing, transit, education, policing, general services, and the budget, so they could easily work together like they did from 1990-2001 and 2011-2016.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

F--ckkk a lot of SPD candidates who won in 2016 and 2021 are getting absolutely slaughtered by the CDU in Neukölln 😬😬😬😬😬😬

Suburban SPD-CDU crime voters are real

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

The left-of center vote has split so heavy while losing strength; the CDU consolidated the right-of-center vote + winng over swing voters. The CDU is sweeping a large number of swing districts on the first vote.


This is an obvious rejection of RRG after 6 years, and also the SPD after 22 years of the SPD leading government (33 total in power). People have lost confidence and want something new.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Per exit polls; Greens eating sh-t on transportation situation, SPD eating sh-t on housing 😬

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Interesting how AfD are relatively low at 9% while in national polls they are at about 15%. Clearly lower than the 14% they got in Berlin in September 2016, when their national polling numbers were even slightly lower than now. Either this indicates they are being overpolled nationally right now, or their voter base has shifted further towards a type of voter that is less present in Berlin.

Sorry for the late response, but I think this is just more that their voter profile is shifting out of urban areas rather than any pro-AfD polling bias.

Back in 2016 they were still a bit more of a protest party who picked up lots of votes from people across the political spectrum who were dissatisfied, whether they were urban or rural, left or right-leaning, etc. and clearly performed best in the former DDR areas.

Since then, their profile as a clearly right-wing party has sharpened, and they also took on more of an anti-big city character as well (especially their rhetoric against Berlin as both the political capital and as a big city has really sharpened). Also, their main candidate Kristin Brinker is not really charismatic and the state party has floundered.

Additionally, migration was a major topic from 2014 to 2018, and since then has become less salient, hence AfD has not done that great since then. While the cost of living crisis + voter shifts from the FDP have boosted the AfD in Niedersachsen in 2022, the Berlin AfD have not really capitalized on it and either way are outvoted. I also think the state CDU running on issues like crime took some of the wind out of the AfD's sails on that issue.

Finally (and possibly most importantly), the CDU presented itself as a credible alternative this election to a leftist government, hence voters opted for the CDU in Berlin who otherwise may have voted AfD.

Are East Berlin voters less likely to be pro-Russia than other East German voters?

Tbh i don't think this played much of a role at all. I would assume less likely? But I also assume that the "pro-Russia" sentiment that is discussed in East Germany is less actually PRO-Russia and more just ambivalence about The West^TM vs. Russia.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Here we see the primary reason for the CDU victory: the overwhelming desire for change, along with concerns about crime and immigration:

Views of NEW CDU voters (roughly translated) :

- I voted CDU so that something finally changes in Berlin
- I would feel better/worry less about order and justice in Berlin
- I think it's good that they name problems with immigration more clearly

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Berlin didn't just have state elections to the House of Representatives, it also had repeat elections for the district-level governments (Bezirksverordnetenversammlung or simply "BVV"). Berlin is unique in that its district-level governments actually have decision-making powers (compare to Hamburg, where they are merely advisory), something which some people have criticized as the root of Berlin's chaotic administration and slow planning & construction, because districts can make legally-binding decisions that go against the decisions of the state government.

Here, the SPD also saw major losses to the CDU. Here is 2021:


 
and here is 2023:



In Neukölln, the SPD-Greens both suffered losses and now have 4 seats short of a majority, and will have to enter coalition negotiations. In the Gropiusstadt, where some of the worst violence against police and firefighters occurred on New Years, there was a major SPD --> CDU swing:



Some people from the RRG camp are coping with the CDU's win by playing cheap identity politics ("only suburban boomers supported the CDU because they are racist and love their cars!!!!"), but clearly, even poorer immigrants do not enjoy their neighborhoods being trashed and worry about crime and attacks on police, firefighters, and ambulances. Even in that little SPD corner, the SPD only edged out the CDU 33.0% to 32.8%. You can also see similar swings to the CDU in other immigrant-heavy neighborhoods like Wedding, or basically every single housing project in the city.

Germany is a country with low crime rates and pretty high levels of social cohesion, has generally managed integration of immigrants much better than other countries despite also having a large immigrant population, and avoided destructive rioting like Paris in 2005 or Stockholm in 2013/2018. Any indication that this is breaking down is clearly not acceptable.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Per exit polls; Greens eating sh-t on transportation situation, SPD eating sh-t on housing 😬

What does this mean in practice? Voters want more car-centric urbanism and more laissez faire Housing policies? Or is it just disagreement with the nitty gritty of how RRG has handled these issues?

More the latter than the former. Berliners are very supportive of more subways, streetcars, bicycle lanes, busses, etc. (even the CDU campaigned on more frequent bus service in the city!), but dislike how the Greens are solely focused on attacking automobiles. The way the Greens handled the closing, reopening, and then closing again of Friedrichstraße with little warning was not well received, and Bettina Jarasch has been lampooned as having an obsessive focus on shutting that street down. Combined with the fact that the Greens have opposed expanding the subways to the outskirts, it comes off as only caring about people living inside the Ringbahn and disdaining people outside of it.

For housing, people did indeed vote for expropriation back in 2021, but other opinion polls have also showed that people want more building from both private developers and also the six state-owned housing companies. There is deep frustration about the lack of construction, combined with skyrocketing rents. And the SPD has led the government for 22 years, and is traditionally the most pro-building party, so they get the blame here.

The SPD's hemming and hawing on the expropriation question also certainly did not earn it a lot of love amongst left-wing voters, either.

I know they spared each other little on the campaign trail, but in itself that isn't always decisive.

"Sparred" is very much the understatement The Berlin Greens are a very leftist chapter of Greens, more so than even the Greens in other major cities like Hamburg or Cologne, let alone any of the southern state parties.

There are massive disagreements between the Greens and CDU in Berlin on key issues like housing and transportation policy. The Greens want to expropriate housing, which the CDU opposes. The CDU wants to not only finish the section of the A100 motorway that is currently under construction in Neukölln/Treptower, but also expand it eastwards across the Spree which would required demolitions of housing, clubs, and businesses. The Greens are adamantly opposed. The Greens want more car-free streets in the city center; the CDU is mostly opposed.

Yes, CDU-Green has a mathematical majority, but I don't see this happening at all. It would genuinely be shocking to me, and one of the two would have to basically cave to the other on issues their voter bases care deeply about. Compare to a continuation of RRG, which is chaotic enough but still can agree on some things, or CDU-SPD, who have very similar election programmes.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

(Thanks to Tagesspiegel for these maps of where the parties gained or lost the most)

The SPD loses votes everywhere except some areas of Friedrichshain and Pankow. The losses were especially strong in Neukölln, and the single biggest losses were in Franziska Giffey's personal district and the neighboring districts.



Die Linke also loses just about everywhere, especially so in the East, but still rather minor losses overall:


The AfD gains everywhere, but the gains are only enough to give it one extra percentage point across the entire state:


The Greens lose in almost every district outside of the Ringbahn, but gain in some inner districts:


The CDU, on the other hand, gains votes everywhere, both inside and outside the Ring:

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

And these graphics come from ARD: https://interaktiv.tagesspiegel.de/lab/waehlerwanderung-abgeordnetenhauswahl-berlin-2023/

Around 14 percent of all CDU votes came from people who had still voted for the Social Democrats in 2021; plus almost three percent of ex-left voters. Citizens with "simple education" gave 39 percent of the CDU their vote, reported Infratest.

It is clear that voters who voted SPD in 2021 and the CDU this time around were the decisive vote, followed by FDP --> CDU voters and nonvoters. The media commentary is that the CDU has become a "people's party" in a big city again, and in this election, a bit of a workers' party.

In many lower-middle and working class districts, voters were horrified by the violence on New Years', and are upset by the inability of the state administration to properly hold an election, the poor quality of schools, and the perceived hostility of the government to those living outside of the Ring when it comes to transportation policy certainly didn't help either. And given that the gender gap disappeared in this election, many of these SPD --> CDU voters were women of all ages and backgrounds.

Voters in places like Rudow, Buckow, Wedding, Marzahn-Mitte, Hohenschönhausen, Kaulsdorf, Adlershof, etc. like things like more frequent public transit, bike lanes, a higher minimum wage, rental controls, good schools, and competent administration. They are cool with immigrants as neighbors and unfazed when hearing foreign languages on the street. Many of them ARE immigrants or have a immigration background and can speak multiple languages!

But they don't like it when bottle rockets are fired deliberately at them when they walk home, through their windows, or having whatever the local equivalent of M80s are thrown into traffic as they drive home. They don't like it when police and ambulances are attacked, or busses set on fire. They don't like sending their children to crumbling and overcrowded school buildings staffed with underpaid teachers who are also stressed dealing with behavioral issues. They don't like being scapegoated because they take their hatchback to the grocery store or IKEA despite riding the S-Bahn to work or the bus to the gym and thinking about getting an electric vehicle next time when it's time to replace the current one. And they want to be proud of their city and so they especially resent being made into the laughingstock of Germany due to government incompetence.

In Spandau, the SPD won the BVV election in 2021 in a surprise upset by just 500 votes. In 2023, they trailed the CDU by over 15,000 votes. More than 50% of voters gave their votes to the right-of-centre, the complete opposite of 2021.  

Perhaps these voters still are satisfied with the federal traffic light coalition. Perhaps many of them still have their heart where the SPD is. Perhaps if there was no repeat election, they would have still voted SPD in 2026 if memories of New Years faded by then. But clearly, they were annoyed at being forced to vote again due to incompetence and angry at the violence in their neighborhoods. So, whether the CDU is actually capable of governing properly and providing real solutions remains to be seen, but 22 years after the banking scandal, voters are fed up and ready to try CDU leadership again.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Perhaps I should have been clearer, but my post was more about SPD-->CDU voters who live in these places, rather than glorifying the general population of a specific neighborhood. Not that all SPD voters are necessarily paragons of purity and pro-social behavior, of course, but it's obvious where these swings came from and they should be analyzed.

The SPD lost many voters from the demographic groups that make up its largest possible voter pool. Especially given that part of the post-election discourse has been to dismiss these people as old suburban racists who selfishly love their cars, it's striking that the SPD lost so heavily especially in areas where they performed strongly in 2021 with large numbers of immigrants, people with a migration background, lower income voters, and women. That's quite notable. I can't really think of many other elections where a party's heaviest losses were concentrated in their strongholds while holding up elsewhere.

The more I think about this election and look at the results, the worse it looks for the SPD. It's embarrassing that this happened in the first place.

Man Berlin sucks at elections.

One of the Germans who are more familiar with how things work can correct me, but this is not the fault of the Berlin election administration, but rather the postal service, which is mostly privatized. And in the end, a very small number of ballots out of millions are likely to get lost or arrive late in any city or country.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Somebody somewhere on the Internets (I don't know the original source) created this very useful table with the results of the district councils (BVV) and the mathematically-possible coalition options



And then some more on the state-level "inside vs outside the Ring":

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

https://m.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/berlin-giffey-will-spd-koalition-mit-cdu-vorschlagen-18712752.amp.html

Looks like CDU-SPD might happen

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

SPD state party board (?) votes to open formal coalition negotiations with the CDU 25 in favor and 12 against

There will also be party debates and then a membership vote as well

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

I think there's a good chance a coalition contract with the CDU might be defeated by a membership vote

The district chairs of Mitte, Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Tempelhof-Schöneberg and Neukölln, plus three of the sitting Bundestag representatives have already expressed skeptical to decidedly negative reactions to the GroKo.  

So rejection isn't common just among the "usual suspects". Has a government coalition proposal ever been defeated by a membership vote in Germany?

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

I think there's a good chance a coalition contract with the CDU might be defeated by a membership vote

The district chairs of Mitte, Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Tempelhof-Schöneberg and Neukölln, plus three of the sitting Bundestag representatives have already expressed skeptical to decidedly negative reactions to the GroKo.  

So rejection isn't common just among the "usual suspects". Has a government coalition proposal ever been defeated by a membership vote in Germany?

Not that I remember of. These membership votes are relatively new, though, was that ever done before the famous SPD vote after the 2013 federal election?

I think the CDU will just give SPD enough policy wins that a small majority votes in favor at the end. CDU overall is much more interested in power rather than actual issues. So they have no issue with selling out big time if that is what is necessary to gain power. Also, is there even going to be a membership vote? Giffey could just to ram the coalition agreement through a state party convention rather than holding a membership referendum?

It has been announced already that a membership vote will follow a period of debate after a contract has been released