🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Astatine]

Why does it rate traffic light as less likely than R2G?

This forecaster asked scholars in political science about how likely they would evaluate certain coalition options. I don't know how the methodology exactly works (I think they might have in their Q&A - in English too btw - and explained thoroughly how they got to the result), but I assume that at least based on their manifestos, R2G has many more political similarities than a traffic light coalition.

Then again, the scholar survey might be somewhat older, and considering that Die Linke is a party with lots of internal struggle, I could easily some parts of the party opposing R2G and rather want the party to recover as left-wing force in opposition to any government involving the Greens. If R2G achieves a narrow majority only, that might be a crucial factor.

I'm still not too convinced that a traffic light coalition is all but certain, since - as some posters had stated before - the FDP base is more conservative than the party leadership and a potential coalition treaty might be up for a vote among the membership base (that was planned with Jamaica in 2017). The sole prospect of governing with the Greens would be a reason for some parts of the base to reject a coalition treaty, although the FDP might just opt for a convention, where an approval would be very likely.

[Astatine]

Die Linke definitely has its place in the political spectrum, but they should get rid of the Maduro apologists on their left fringe. Maybe it would help if they dropped out of parliament. There are reasonable people in the reformist wing of the party.

Something I've noticed is that a lot of polls have had Die Linke near the threshold, but I haven't seen any that have had them at or below the threshold. Is there any real sense that they're in danger of missing out? I'm guessing that they're not going to win enough direct seats for the threshold not to matter.

Die Linke has 3 seats in Berlin almost safe, and some additional territory in the East where it could hold/gain seats. Overall, it is likely to assume the party will win the 3 districts necessary to be exempt from the 5 % threshold - One of the current district representatives, Gregor Gysi, had the strongest personal overperformance of all parties/candidates in the 2017 elections.

Die Linke has a core of die-hard supporters, especially in the East, but well, they're dying off. Beyond that, Die Linke performs strongly in urban areas, especially among younger voters, but is in competition with the Greens.

If Die Linke were to fail the threshold but get the 3 seats, the party would still face harder times. In that case, the party would only form a "Gruppe" instead of a "Fraktion", basically a parliamentary caucus with less rights and reduced funding, meaning not only lots of its MPs would become unemployed, but also large parts of the party's parliamentary staff.

[Astatine]

Die Linke definitely has its place in the political spectrum, but they should get rid of the Maduro apologists on their left fringe. Maybe it would help if they dropped out of parliament. There are reasonable people in the reformist wing of the party.

Something I've noticed is that a lot of polls have had Die Linke near the threshold, but I haven't seen any that have had them at or below the threshold. Is there any real sense that they're in danger of missing out? I'm guessing that they're not going to win enough direct seats for the threshold not to matter.

Iirc all they need is one direct seat to get a share of seats in the Bundestag in line with their vote share, but the laws might have changed.

The law has changed some time ago: Until 1956 just one direct seat was needed, but ever since, three.

[Astatine]

Die Linke has 3 seats in Berlin almost safe...

Well, they were safe. Trouble is, if they were to lose close to half of their list support from last time (which is what dropping below the threshold would entail) there's little chance that this wouldn't be at least partially reflected in constituency vote performance, and there's no reason at all to assume that things would magically be more solid in the constituencies that they hold. Marzhan-Hellersdorf was won with a vote share of 34% last time and Lichtenberg with one of 35%: lop, say, a third off that and the seats are potentially at risk. Of course they've never lost either, but things can change. Gysi's 40% gives him a little more wriggle-room, at least so long as his personal vote holds. Most likely they're all right either way (if perhaps a little more uncomfortably than is dignified), but...

Although their ratings have to be taken with a grain of salt, election.de has Die Linke winning with high probability in all 3 Berlin seats (Gysi 100 %, Pau 92 %, Lötzsch 97 %). I don't put any confidence into INSA's seat projection, since I was part of INSA polls on which their district forecasts were made and they didn't even bother to ask the district voting intention.

I agree that it is all but certain that all of the three will lose ground, potentially falling into single digit margins, but as of now I'd still say the races are in almost safe or likely territory. I feel that the issues Die Linke focuses on, such as expropriation/the housing crisis, resonate quite well in Berlin, way more so than in other places, also because Berlin will have a non-binding referendum on Sunday on whether some housing companies should be expropriated. In polls for the state elections Die Linke seemed to be relatively stable in comparison to their nationwide standing right now.

When looking at the results of the 2017 elections, it can be noted that the modest gains Die Linke made nationwide (9.1 %, +0.5) were all caused by improving the result in the West overall (7.4 %, +1.8), while their vote share in the East plummeted strongly (17.8 %, -4.9). Most of Die Linke's losses right now can be attributed to the party falling back to 2013/2005 (5.6, 4.9 % respectively) level in the West, while the party's vote share in the East that had always saved them before might not be enough to offset a potential debacle.

[Astatine]

Does Germany also have the famous "reflection day ", where there's no campaign, publication of polls, etc?

Not really in that sense, today is the final day of campaigning and well, tomorrow is election day. I am not sure if pre-election polls are allowed to be published on election day, at least no reputable pollster does that.

Nevertheless, Germany is quite strict when it comes to publishing preliminary results of post-election exit polls. Anyone who publishes those (they have some level of uncertainty, especially now with increased postal voting) can be fined with up to 50,000 €. It happens undercover though, since the party leadership gets access to the data - I had also received leaked exit poll data of the 2018 elections in Hesse and Bavaria, which was somewhat accurate.

Postal voting increasingly becomes a strategical challenge for pollsters, and right now there is a pending lawsuit on whether pollsters are allowed to ask the respondents whether they have already voted by mail and if yes, for whom two days ago, a court ruled that they are allowed to include postal voting in their questionnaires. Opponents of this method argue that this violates one of the constitutional election principles, secrecy.

[Astatine]

Could the Greens realistically win more than the one constituency they've been holding on to?

Yes. They're favorites in one district in Stuttgart, a town where Greens usually overperform, also thanks to their formidable candidate, and could realistically win another district there. Baden-Württemberg offers several other pickup chances as well, including Freiburg for instance. Possible wins include some other urban areas too, including Munich, Frankfurt, Darmstadt and Kiel.

[Astatine]

Trends so far hint that turnout might rise, potentially hitting the 80 % mark for the first time since 1998 - I would've expected a drop, similarly to the state elections since Covid-19.

Lower Saxony (76.4 % in 2017, excluding VBM):
10 am (2017): 9.2 %
10 am (2021): 14.3 %

Cologne (partially including VBM):
1 pm (2017): 34.9 %
1 pm (2021): 37.2 %

Nuremberg (excluding VBM):
11 am (2017): 12.4 %
11 am (2021): 14.4 %

Schleswig-Holstein (excluding VBM):
11 am (2017): 22.8 %
11 am (2021): 23.8 %

[Astatine]

I know some German from high school so I was able to roughly translate this and I got a good laugh out of this. Correct me if I’m wrong, but if I’m translating this correctly she’s saying “Laschet keeps producing a**bombs every day, right up until the last second.”

Well, your translation is correct, but the point, of course, is that he set a very bad example by violating ballot secrecy - which (most likely) is mandatory - (because if your allowed to publish your vote, this will open the flood-gates to vote buying) - so probably, his vote shouldn't be counted, but invalidated...

Even the head of the Federal Electoral Committee had to comment on this gaffe. While it seems to be true that he was violating the principle of ballot secrecy, the local electoral supervisors would've been supposed to notice this and would've had to hand him a new ballot. As soon as his vote is in the ballot box, it counts. 

[Astatine]

When will the VBM be counted. Before, during or after the election day vote is counted ?

VBM will be counted at the same time as normal ballots, but it will just take a bit longer since the envelopes have to be opened, it has to be checked whether all signatures were made etc.

But Germany counts its vote very quickly, we'll have a preliminary result tomorrow somewhen.

[Astatine]

Hubert Aiwanger, Bavaria's Deputy Minister-President and leader of the Free Voters, has shared confidential exit polls on Twitter, and now he might get into big trouble for that.

[Astatine]

Which site for the best and most informative results?

https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2021-09-26-BT-DE/index.shtml

[Astatine]

CDU voters "tend to vote in the morning" so you might expect a mid/early-afternoon poll to look good for them.

Pollsters account for that and adjust their exit polls accordingly.

[Astatine]

Economic Competence of the FDP according to the exit polls. FDP looking really good if thats true.

Oh definitely. I analyzed the correlation between FDP results and their competence values on economic issues once (all elections since 2012), with the following result:

[Astatine]

CSU appears to be at 33 % in Bavaria according to ZDF.

[Astatine]

It annoys me that ZDF apparently forgets the SSW and doesn't account for the direct seats Linke is likely to achieve even if they fail to take the 5 % threshold.

[Astatine]

Well at least RRG doesn't have the numbers.

Not necessarily

If R2G has a narrow majority only, I doubt SPD and Greens would take that risk.

[Astatine]

Updated ARD exit

24.7% Union 155+43 Seats
24.9% SPD 197 Seats
14.8% Green 117
11.3% AfD 89
11.2% FDP 88
5% Linke 40

An another indication of an Americanization of German elections:

Will the 2021 federal election turn into a 2016 US election? 🤔
The SPD might receive the most second votes while the Union could pickup more seats (thanks to overhang and leveling seats for the CSU.)
It would be extremely funny and ironic if the SSW seat (an SPD ally) was going to tip the scale.

I thought the leveling seats were assigned based on national results? Was the law changed since last time?

Yes, there was a slight reform that not every overhang seats gets compensated, which will benefit CSU a lot since they will probably sweep almost all of the seats in Bavaria. Confusing reform though, I don't know anyone who could explain when which seats get compensated.

[Astatine]

Shout-out to Allensbach, whose outdated face-to-face polling methodology I had mocked before, but if the current estimates hold, then their ultimate poll was pretty neat (CDU/CSU 25, SPD 26, Greens 16, FDP 10.5, AfD 10, Linke 5).

[Astatine]

Updated ARD exit

24.7% Union 155+43 Seats
24.9% SPD 197 Seats
14.8% Green 117
11.3% AfD 89
11.2% FDP 88
5% Linke 40

24.7% Union 154+44 Seats
24.9% SPD 197 Seats
14.6% Green 115
11.7% FDP 92
11.1% AfD 88
5% Linke 39
x% SSW 1

So it basically boils down to whether Scholz can nail the Greens\alliance to pledge to only join a coalition led by the SPD and pressuring the FDP to join? otherwise with time the green will drift towards a Jamaica set up?

Unlikely.

Well, the Greens' co-leader Robert Habeck was still open to Jamaica just some minutes ago, as long as the next government is a "climate government".

[Astatine]

Hans-Georg Maaßen, the controversial right-wing CDU candidate in South Thuringia, is in third place right now in his district:

https://wahlen.thueringen.de/datenbank/wahl1/wahl.asp?wahlart=BW&wJahr=2021&zeigeErg=WK&wknr=196

Current first vote:
Ulrich (SPD) 31.0 %
Treutler (AfD) 24.0 %
Maaßen (CDU) 23.2 %

He doesn't have a list spot.

Bye Felicia

[Astatine]

AKK is on track to lose Saarbrücken. She is way behind in Saarbrücken City and only narrowly leads in her hometown Püttlingen. It's pretty much over for her.

Linke in Saarland collapsed to 5 % after more than 12 % in the last federal elections.

[Astatine]

AKK is on track to lose Saarbrücken. She is way behind in Saarbrücken City and only narrowly leads in her hometown Püttlingen. It's pretty much over for her.

Linke in Saarland collapsed to 5 % after more than 12 % in the last federal elections.

Can she get in on a list spot?

Yes, it seems like she is in because the SPD overperforms a lot in Saarland thanks to the collapse of Die Linke and Greens not running. Maas is also ahead of Altmaier.

[Astatine]

Looks like every updated projection gets better for the SPD. They've probably got this. FDP also going up, and Greens and AfD are going down.

Still no chance of an SPD-FDP-Linke coalition?

There never was one. FDP and Die Linke are just absolutely incompatible.

Lindner and Wissler both seem young, cool and full of new ideas. Was hoping they could put together some kind of libertarian socialist coalition.

A Ribbentrop-Molotov coalition (Linke/AfD) would be more logical: Alice Weidel and Janine Wißler are both young intelligent women whose names start with W.
/s

[Astatine]

The stereotype of the elderly die Linke voter doesn't seem very accurate then...

Steadily dying out or leaving the party to other alternatives (pun intended)

Indeed:



Die Linke is the only party from which the AfD can gain voters, they supporters to every other party.

[Astatine]

The only real Rio Grande comparison that may be made is the SPD's seeming decline in Munich?

Bavarians and Upper Austrians don’t like the SPDÖs for some kind of reason.

Scholz gains a lot more elsewhere, like in the East.

hey tender ik it's you