European Parliament Election: May 23-26, 2019

[Tender Branson]

ÖVP-FPÖs most useful idiot, the German satirist Jens Böhmermann, has created controversy again yesterday by saying in an Austrian ORF interview:

* 8 million Austrians are lunatics and debile (at least it means that 1 million Austrians are not ...)

* that Austria is governed by a 32-year old insurance salesman who annoys everyone around the globe

* that the FPÖ is spewing Nazi topics on a daily basis (which is accurate, but his comments help them a lot before an election like this)

https://www.tt.com/kultur/medien/15617899/boehmermann-spottet-im-orf-oesterreicher-sind-acht-millionen-debile

[Tender Branson]

As I have already posted, Austria will close polls at 5pm - but the result will only be released by the Interior Ministry at 11pm, when Italy has closed their polls.

Until today it was unclear if there will be some sort of 1st projection by the media after 5pm or not.

But EU election law allows media from the member countries to release exit polls or projections even before the last precinct has closed in Italy.

Therefore, SORA/ORF and ARGE Wahlen for the Austrian Press Agency/ATV will release one each at around 5:15pm.

The only major difference this time is that unlike for a national election, there are no already-counted precincts that the 1st projection can be based on. Based on Paragraph 47 (2) EU election law, the Interior Ministry is restricting any data to be forwarded to the media until 11pm. That applies to all election workers, but not witnesses from parties who observe the election process in each precinct. Therefore SORA and ARGE will "exit poll" those party witnesses to get a first projection. The MoE should be quite a bit higher than in national elections, but should still yield a good result.

https://orf.at/stories/3121466

[Tender Branson]

Vienna's online application system for postal ballots has been hacked by unknown perpetrators, but no voter data has been "stolen".

https://wien.orf.at/news/stories/2980688

There was a several hour delay in processing newly requested absentee ballots, but the Vienna city workers simply continued to manually record them instead.

Since Vienna's postal voters overwhelmingly vote Left, it was probably Russian hackers on behalf of the FPÖ ...

[Tender Branson]

The FPÖ is out with their last (?) poster campaign, this time feat. Voldemort (= Vilimsky) and Strache:

"Austria needs you. Now more than ever before [X] FPÖ. Only voting is effective."

The FPÖ already used the "Austria needs you." line on the Norbert Hofer posters, so it's pretty odd that he's not on there as well.

BTW: tomorrow at noon, the biggest media poll so far will be released (Unique Research for the 3 media organisations "Profil" magazine, "Heute" newspaper and ATV. The sample will be 2400 people.)

[Tender Branson]

From what I have seen driving around recently, the FPÖ has an enormous amount of posters up in my district. The 2nd party is the ÖVP, which has much more posters of Karoline Edtstadler up compared with Othmar Karas (Edtstadler is from Salzburg, so that makes sense). I have seen ca. 50 different FPÖ posters alone in the Zell am See area and some 30 from the ÖVP.

SPÖ and Greens are virtually without any posters around here for now and there are only some NEOS posters.

That is no surprise though, because FPÖ and ÖVP are flush with cash from their recent victories and by increased public party financing as a result of it. SPÖ and Greens have a problematic fiscal situation, so they focus their poster campaign on the big cities.

[Tender Branson]

New Austria EU poll (Unique Research for ATV, Heute and Profil media):



Turnout: 49% (+4)

[Tender Branson]

Untitled ÖVP ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svXvdTkzfrw

SPÖ ad "A Europe for the People, not big corporations":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4ZdPDzwoTQ

Green Party ad "Back to the roots. Back to the Greens":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUJ-FXIP8F8

NEOS ad "Home(land)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdtDOGDGmjA

NEOS mobilisation ad "Are you going to let THOSE PEOPLE decide your future ?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe17mnAGhTs

(pictured are stereotypical FPÖ-voters who arrogantly say it's best to not vote, or that their goals have been achieved with ÖVP-FPÖ etc.)

... which is pretty funny, because the FPÖ is out with an ad (watched by almost 1 million people already) that is titled: "If you are not voting this time, others will vote for asylum chaos and more EU centralisation."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKbl5Oyodus

[Tender Branson]

Tonight, the first of 4 elephant debates between the 6 frontrunners will take place on PULS 4 TV:



Katerina Anastasiou (Communist Party) is not invited to the debates, as the KPÖ is not represented in the national or EU parliament.

Pollster OGM will do a live debate survey of who won and who did best on certain topics.

[Tender Branson]

Tonight, the first of 4 elephant debates between the 6 frontrunners will take place on PULS 4 TV:



Katerina Anastasiou (Communist Party) is not invited to the debates, as the KPÖ is not represented in the national or EU parliament.

Pollster OGM will do a live debate survey of who won and who did best on certain topics.

The debate just ended and the OGM poll results about the debate winner will come soon.

I think that Gamon (NEOS) and Kogler (Greens) did really well - as did Voggenhuber (Europe Now) surprisingly.

Vilimsky and Schieder were average, Karas (ÖVP) kinda weak and constantly under attack.

https://twitter.com/puls4/status/1127655285227708419?s=21

[Tender Branson]

Vilimsky (FPÖ) has won all 3 debate clusters shown so far, according to the OGM debate poll.

Gamon (NEOS) also very strong. Kogler (Greens) very strong in the climate cluster, but beaten by the FPÖ candidate ...

[Tender Branson]

Vilimsky/Voldemort (FPÖ) has won the debate by a big margin, says OGM.



But Gamon has won young voters (16-29 years) with 28% !

https://twitter.com/yvicathe/status/1127665333316276226?s=21

[Tender Branson]

It should be noted that the FPÖ as the only EU-critical party has a monopoly among the 7 parties on the ballot this year. The other 6 are all pro-EU. And some 33% of Austrians can be described as EU-sceptical.

[Tender Branson]

Debate polls are often a bit shady though and hardly predict the eventual winner, as Presidents Hillary Clinton and Norbert Hofer can tell us (they won every single debate poll).

[Tender Branson]

Austrians by a huge margin want to remain in the EU, think the country has benefitted from EU membership, but want more sovereignity over certain topics (according to the big Heute/ATV/Profil poll):

"Are you for or against an Auxit ? + by party."

22% for Auxit
73% against



"Has the EU membership benefitted Austria or not ? + by party."

58-30 Yes



"In the next years, the EU should [...] ? + by party."

21% transform into a United States of Europe
23% stay as it is right now
46% allow member countries more sovereignity over certain topics again

[Tender Branson]

I wonder how this will impact the election ?

Austrian far-right leader filmed offering public contracts for Russian campaign support

"Heinz-Christian Strache appeared prepared to accept money from a dubious Russian source."



https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-far-right-freedom-strache

The "Presse" is reporting that a "western intelligence service" probably set up the video trap for Strache, to expose the FPÖ's deep Russia-ties before the election.

https://diepresse.com/home/innenpolitik/5630280/Woher-kommt-das-StracheVideo

[Tender Branson]

FPÖ-leader Strache has just resigned all his offices in a press statement.

This changes everything, all polls taken in Austria until now are meaningless.

I could see the FPÖ dropping to as low as 10-15% next Sunday ...

https://orf.at/stories/3122863

[Tender Branson]

FPO will most likely remain in the 15-20 %. A drop indeed but not so severe, their base is too loyal.

I would be really surprised if they remain that high after these events ... 10-14% is more likely now. I think they will be cut in half, as most of their voters are either not turning out to vote at all next Sunday, or vote ÖVP.

[Tender Branson]

FPO will most likely remain in the 15-20 %. A drop indeed but not so severe, their base is too loyal.

I would be really surprised if they remain that high after these events ... 10-14% is more likely now. I think they will be cut in half, as most of their voters are either not turning out to vote at all next Sunday, or vote ÖVP.

I mean FPO's base is non college whites basically who hate immigration.
Why would they care so much about that to make FPO drop significantly to 10%?

Because this is an extraordinary event, like Knittelfeld was in 2002, after which the FPÖ dropped to 10% or less in elections.

Their longtime party leader and identification figure (Strache) is suddenly gone in disgrace and the whole story will dominate news over the next week. Immigration will have no role in the next week.

[Tender Branson]

FPÖ-leader Strache has just resigned all his offices in a press statement.

This changes everything, all polls taken in Austria until now are meaningless.

I could see the FPÖ dropping to as low as 10-15% next Sunday ...

https://orf.at/stories/3122863

Any reason why? From a tactical perspective it would have been a lot better to resign after the election.

Was he corrupt or had a scandal?

Read the reason here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=285633.msg6800480#msg6800480

and more detailed starting here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=310336.msg6800424#msg6800424

+ the complexity of this case/video made an immediate resignation necessary, not wait until the EU election is over.

[Tender Branson]

FPO will most likely remain in the 15-20 %. A drop indeed but not so severe, their base is too loyal.

I would be really surprised if they remain that high after these events ... 10-14% is more likely now. I think they will be cut in half, as most of their voters are either not turning out to vote at all next Sunday, or vote ÖVP.

Do you (or somebody else) know if we can see opinion polls next week? 2014 they weren't any polls in the last 8 days before the election.

Usually, there is agreement among pollsters not to release final polls in the week before an election.

But considering the events, some might do a last poll now ...

[Tender Branson]

My early prediction for the EU election, after the recent events:

37% ÖVP
30% SPÖ
12% NEOS
10% Greens
  9% FPÖ
  1% Europa
  1% KPÖ

[Tender Branson]

Thanks!
I hope that somebody will do.

According to this new article, which interviewed some pollsters today, there will be no further polls in the next week.

They say that it takes ca. 3 days after such a scandal, so that "voters can process everything" and then an additional 4-5 days to create the poll, go into the field and calculate the results.

Until Sunday, that is impossible.

[Tender Branson]

My early prediction for the EU election, after the recent events:

37% ÖVP
30% SPÖ
12% NEOS
10% Greens
  9% FPÖ
  1% Europa
  1% KPÖ

OVP probably around 45% i think, and less for SPO and Greens.

45% ?

No way. They only got 27% in 2014. It's even possible that the FPÖ does not as badly as I predict here and that NEOS will get a good result this time. That means the ÖVP would get no more than 38-40% at best.

[Tender Branson]

Tonight, the 3rd of 4 EU-debates with the frontrunners will be held on ATV.

I'm pretty sure that only 1% of the debate will be about Europe this time ...

The final debate will be on Thursday on the main ORF TV.

[Tender Branson]

Tonight, the 3rd of 4 EU-debates with the frontrunners will be held on ATV.

I'm pretty sure that only 1% of the debate will be about Europe this time ...

The final debate will be on Thursday on the main ORF TV.

Wow, the candidates of FPÖ and ÖVP are stressed as hell and attack each other brutally, like it was the case in the good old days of SPÖVP ...

Live here:

https://www.atv.at/livestream