🇩🇪 German state & local elections

[republicanbayer]

The CDU's shift to the left over the last decade has put them in a horrible strategic position and I don't think there's any solution to that.

In her first term, her coalition with the SPD forced her to the left, she abandoned many of her campaign promises (tax cuts), but by shifting to the left, she managed to take away a lot of votes from the SPD. The CDU also lost a lot of votes because of that - 2009 was their worst performance ever back then - but these voters went to the FDP. Back then, the FDP was the CDU’s natural junior partner. So losing votes to them while gaining votes from the SPD was a very clever strategy, that helped the CDU-FDP coalition getting a majority in 2009.

Over the next four years her shift to the left continued (getting rid of the Wehrpflicht, phasing out of nuclear energy and saving the Euro, while again not delivering on tax cuts). As a junior partner, the FDP supported all these policies. So the only viable conservative alternative to the CDU vanished (the AfD was just getting founded back then). Merkel got back all of the conservative vote from the FDP in 2013 while holding the centrist and some of the center-left vote, which is why she just fell short of an outright majority – something that happened only once before in German history.

Her strategy went well for two more years, but the refugee crisis was a turning point. By letting all these people in, many conservatives left the CDU for good and joined the AfD. For the first time, there was a right-wing alternative to the CDU, especially one that would not be a coalition-partner and therefore make it harder to get a majority. Furthermore, the FDP reemerged as a viable alternative for CDU voters who were unhappy with their current policies. In her third term, Merkel moved the party further to the left than ever before, not only due to the refugee situation, but also because of leftist economic policies. By doing so, she kept moderate and some leftist voters while losing conservative voters in huge numbers to the AfD and FDP. The 2017 election was the worst in CDU history.

Over the last two years, some people – certainly not Merkel, but Merz, Söder (until the 2018 Bavarian election) and even AKK – tried to move the party back to the right in order to get back voters from the FDP and AfD. Since none of them have real influence in the Merkel government, all they can do is talk about being conservative, the CDU-led government is still very much center-leftist. So they are not really getting back any voters from the right, but alienating moderate voters. The emergence of the Green Party offered a nice alternative for these people.

As of today, many conservative CDU-voters have already left the party, some of them for good. Many of those who vote for the CDU are moderate swing-voters, who might vote for the Greens the next time. The electorate in general, but also long-time CDU voters and members have followed Merkel’s lead to the left. Merkel managed to open the CDU in all directions – which is good as long as the voters come your way. Now that the voters are leaving, they are leaving the party in all directions.   

[republicanbayer]

Imagine an scenario where all the minor parties drop out and only Linke, AfD and CDU make it into parliament. What happens next? (also assuming Linke does not get a majority of its own)

If it looks like a party is going to fall below the threshold, it's not uncommon for it to get lent quite a lot of votes by tactical voters. See for example the 2017 federal election, where the FDP ended up way above where most polling from a few weeks before had put it and not down to any efforts on their part.

I'd argue the most dangerous spot for a party to be polling in is 6-7%, whereas if it's getting 4-5% there's a very high chance it will get in.

No, the FDP ended up with such a good result in 2017 because of a bump from the Nordrhein-Westfalen and Schleswig-Holstein state elections thanks to great campaigns from Lindner and Kubicki. They presented themselves as a modern party and offered a reasonable, non-extremist, alternative to Merkel's leftist policies.
In 2013 on the other hand, they failed to get above 5% in the Bavarian state election one week before the federal election. They begged for votes from the CDU all week long, because voters lost whatever respect they had left for them.

[republicanbayer]

With all precincts counted, FDP is once again at 5.0%, 120 votes above the threshold. Still, a source in the party told me they won't make it once the results are finalized tomorrow.

[republicanbayer]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Hallaschka_HH/status/1234801221669662721
A woman at a strategic conference of the Left Party talks about shooting the richest 1% of the population, nobody in the audience reacts and Bernd Riexinger, party leader, responds „we won‘t shoot them, we‘ll Uwe them for useful work.“
Remember that a member of this party will be elected minister-president tomorrow thanks to support from SPD, Greens and possibly CDU.