🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Astatine]

Left in disarray after the poor results in Saxony-Anhalt yesterday: Former Left Party leader and husband of Sahra Wagenknecht, Oskar Lafontaine, officially withdrew the support for his own party in the next federal election. In a tumultuous membership vote, Lafontaine's intra-party opponent Thomas Lutze was - once again - placed on the top spot for the Saarland federal election list. Lutze and Lafontaine detest each other, and there are numerous allegations of document forgery etc. against Lutze by the Wagenknecht/Lafontaine wing of the party. Lafontaine also stated that Lutze represents the exact opposite of what he and his wife believe in, so we're just gonna see a further isolation of her wing within the party.

Albeit this will not influence the federal result significantly, it's the peak of the current turmoil within the Left Party and as they're dangerously close to the five percent threshold, such discussions really don't help in the fight for electoral success.

I wouldn't say the overall left or center-left is in disarray because of this result. Obviously a ton of SPD, Left and Green voters switched to the CDU as polls and the media indicated the election could be a tossup between CDU and AfD.

However, Wagenknecht gave a very good analysis in Anne Will's talkshow yesterday, that left-wing politics are more associated with wokeness, political correctness, academic elites and forced multiculturalism and not so much about improving the lives of average people. This pretty much is true, at least center-left and left-wing parties are more associated with the former than the latter, even if it's not always objectively true. This seems to be an international phenomena and also applies to the Democratic Party in the US or Labor in the UK.

I am sorry for confusion, with "Left" I meant the Left Party only. I should have referred to the party as Linke or Left Party.

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First detailed post Saxony Anhalt poll and ouch:

Who is fit to serve as Chancellor (May vs. now):


Chancellor polling:


Approval ratings (-5 to +5; rank 10-6, Baerbock with significant decline):


Voting intention:


Preferred party to lead the next government:

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And another poll is out - The Green honeymoon is over (for now):





The full survey has Baerbock at a 60 % disapproval rating: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/deutschlandtrend-2669.pdf

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Is Tino Chrupalla perceived as the AfD leader?  I'm just interested that he is polled and Meuthen isn't.

On the point of parties seemingly getting away with corruption and scandals I think it may be because those parties (Union, Tories, Liberals) are historically natural parties of government in their countries.  Therefore it's easy to dismiss their scandals as just typical govt behaviour.  I'm conscious I'm not articulating this very well.

Infratest Dimap usually rotates between different party politicians, for instance when parliamentary group and party leadership are different from each other, or when a party/parliamentary group has a "Doppelspitze" (two leaders). I believe they also polled Wissler's co-leader Hennig-Wellsow for the Left last time, but I am not completely sure (or maybe parliamentary group leader Bartsch).

FGW's methodology is completely unknown and allegedly the pollees are asked to rank the 10 most important politicians and grade them on a scale from -5 to +5. Sometimes politicians that weren't on the news or anything just randomly pop up on the list.

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The german parties have official colors and some coalitions receive the name of national flags according to the colors of the parties: Jamaica, Kenya and Germany. Other coalitions can receive the name of countries too.

Jamaica: black, green, yellow (CDU, Grüne, FDP)
Kenya: black, green, red (CDU, Grüne, SPD)
Germany: black, red, yellow (CDU, SPD, FDP)

Other coalitions
Angola: black, red (CDU, SPD = great coalition)
Bolivia: red, yellow, green (SPD, FDP, Grüne = traffic lights coalition)
Spain: red, yellow (SPD, FDP)
Portugal: red, green (SPD, Grüne)
Old Austria, House of Habsburg: black, yellow (CDU, FDP)
Ukraine: blue, yellow (AfD, FDP)
Brazil: green, yellow, blue (Grüne, FDP, AfD)
South Africa: black, red, yellow, green, blue (all the parties)

Of course I am talking only about the possible combination of colors and the national flags. I know that there would never be a Brasilien Koalition incluind the Green, the FDP and the AfD. It would be weird an environmentalist liberal fascist government.

I made a full list one time with actually established terms (Spain for instance would refer to SPD/FDP/Linke) in the deleted state elections thread, I luckily saved it :

CDU/CSU+SPD: Groko (black-red, red-black)
CDU/CSU+FDP: Tiger duck (black-yellow)
CDU/CSU+Greens: Kiwi (black-green)
CDU/CSU+FW: Papaya (black-orange)
CDU/CSU+AfD: black-blue
CDU/CSU+Left: black-dark red
CDU/CSU+FDP+SPD: Germany (black-red-yellow)
CDU/CSU+FDP+Greens: Jamaica, "blaffic light" (-> Schwampel = black traffic light; black-green-yellow)
CDU/CSU+FDP+AfD: Bahamas (black-yellow-blue)
CDU/CSU+SPD+Greens: Kenya, Afghanistan (black-red-green)
CDU/CSU+SPD+Greens+FDP: Zimbabwe (black-red-green-yellow)
CDU/CSU+Greens+FW: Zanzibar (black-green-blue)
CDU/CSU+Greens+VOLT: green-black-purple
SPD+Greens: red-green
SPD+FDP: social-liberal (red-yellow)
SPD+Left: red-red, Magdeburg model if Left is partner on a confidence & supply basis
SPD+Left+Greens: R2G, Belarus (red-red-green)
SPD+FDP+Greens: traffic light (red-yellow-green)
SPD+Greens+SSW: Gambia, Danish traffic light, coast (red-green-blue)
SPD+Greens+Pirates: pepper/paprika (red-green-orange)
SPD+Left+FDP: Spain (red-red-yellow)
SPD+Left+Greens+FDP: R2G2 (red-red-green-yellow)
Greens+FDP: limes (green-yellow)

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If coalitions can have name of fruits, the red-green coalition can be the watermelon coalition

If many parties are involved (not uncommon on local level), a broad variety of combinations (SPD+FDP+Greens+VOLT, SPD+FW+Greens+ÖDP+FDP...) is simply called a Rainbow coalition.

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The elections in the electoral districts might not matter that much, as the seats gets allocated according to proportional representation with the list vote, buuut... They still decide who might make it into the Bundestag. Some candidates running in the districts are not part of the respective state lists and might not make it into the Bundestag else.

I will try to analyze some interesting districts and give them ratings. Some might be more or less interesting due to the candidates up for election (Potsdam for instance, where Olaf Scholz and Annalena Baerbock are running against each other there).

I'll start with my home district - And encourage other German posters to do the same.

296: Saarbrücken

Basic data:
Population (2017): 270,000
Eligible population (2017): 205,000
Turnout (2017): 73.8 %

Past district voting patterns:
2002: SPD +17.7
2005: SPD +3.7
2009: CDU +1.4
2013: CDU +0.7
2017: SPD +0.7

Forecaster ratings:
INSA: SPD advantage <3 pts.
election.de:  Lean CDU (flip)
Wahlkreisprognose: Lean SPD

Major candidates:
 
Incumbent Bundestag member Josephine Ortleb (SPD) is running for a second term. Her first candidacy in 2017 resulted in one of the few, if not only, Social Democratic pickups of districts. Ortleb was member of the Saarbrücken city council before and made big efforts to win the district vote. She eventually beat the unknown CDU candidate Bernd Wegner - Both the incumbent CDU and SPD Bundestag members from district 296 chose to retire. Ortleb has kept a relatively low profile since.

She is going to face Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU), who is past the peak of her political career but still wants to play a role in federal politics. Her career had been steep: first female state interior minister in 2000, then various cabinet positions, Minister-President 2011-2018 (including her famous successful re-election bid in 2017), General Secretary of the CDU in 2018 and CDU leader 2018-2021. She has been Secretary of Defense since July 2019, and this is the make-or-break moment for what will be probably the last chapter of her political life. If she wins the district, AKK might still have a shot to get a cabinet position. If not, she is essentially done and will be remembered as a tragic figure who was once believed to be the next German Chancellor. Her advantage: AKK is well-known and probably still relatively popular.

Other candidates? Won't matter much. Greens are way too weak and unknown (Saarland is their weakest state party) to win the district and have some intra-party turmoils here. The candidacy of the Left Party will matter a lot, although the Left is not going to win district 296.

Introducing the district:
District 296 is a social democratic district at heart, but due to the Left Party's residual strength here (-> Oskar Lafontaine), CDU managed to pick it up twice, albeit by narrow margins (even in Merkel's landslide win in 2013).

The district is made of five towns and the Saarland state capital of Saarbrücken - I divided the latter into the 4 city boroughs for a better distinction. That's how many people turned out to vote in 2017 (I ignored the minor parties):

-Püttlingen: AKK's hometown, suburban, many "typical" middle class households, extremely Catholic - 11,900
-Riegelsberg: hometown of then CDU candidate Bernd Wegner, suburban, many middle class households - 9,400
-Großrosseln: more of an industrial suburb - 4,800
-Völklingen: unionized, some suburban areas, but overall a "typical" working class town in which the SPD still has some residual strength - 18,200
-Kleinblittersdorf: boring middle class suburb - 7,000
-Saarbrücken-Halberg: borough encompassing some of Saarbrücken's middle-class suburbs - 14,700
-Saabrücken-West: quite similar to Völklingen, high unemployment, now stronghold of the Left Party and AfD, but also including some middle-class areas - 14,400
-Saarbrücken-Dudweiler: essentially a micro cosmos of the whole district - 14,000
-Saarbrücken-Center: downtown of Saarbrücken, including high unemployment areas, middle-class suburban neighborhoods, green-left alternative downtown (Greens performed strongest here) and really fancy mansion areas - 46,700
 
The raw district vote in 2017 (the list vote was won by CDU!):

SPD: 46,700 (32.1 %)
CDU: 46,600 (31.4 %)
Left Party: 19,300 (13.3 %)
AfD: 13,000 (8.9 %)
Greens: 8,800 (6.0 %)
FDP: 7,700 (5.3 %)

Total: SPD +1,100 (+0.7 %)

And the respective towns/boroughs produced the following margins (includes some rounding errors):

- Püttlingen: CDU +1,350
- Riegelsberg: CDU +1,000
- Großrosseln: SPD +250
- Völklingen: SPD +1,350
- Kleinblittersdorf: CDU +350
- SB-Halberg: CDU +600
- SB-West: SPD +1,000
- SB-Dudweiler: SPD +450
- SB-Center: SPD +1,350

Rating:
This district is as toss-uppy as a district could get in Germany. If the Left Party were not running, I'd expect the SPD to win this district relatively comfortably. The current federal and statewide crisis of the Left Party might be beneficial for the Social Democrats, but then, this development will probably be countered by the Greens, especially in the Saarbrücken boroughs (the Greens didn't get 5 % of the district vote in any of the neighboring towns).
But then again, the Greens lack the structure they have in other states over here, while both CDU and SPD still have a solid membership base. The Liberals' residual weakness here (FDP doesn't really have a base in Saarbrücken, most of them are dissatisfied Christian Democrats who still vote CDU for the district vote) might make a potential strong FDP result on federal level less harmful for AKK.

Gun to my head and I'd rate my district as Lean CDU (flip). Ortleb is not entrenched enough to have a sizeable incumbency bonus that would offset AKK's de facto incumbency bonus over here. Based on her district campaign manifesto, AKK seems to be trying to appeal to Green voters by making Environmental and Climate policy one of her three key issues. I definitely expect some CDU/Green ticket splitting.

As of now, my margin-wise expectation would be a result like this:

- Püttlingen: CDU +1,600
- Riegelsberg: CDU +1,200
- Großrosseln: SPD +100
- Völklingen: SPD +1,100
- Kleinblittersdorf: CDU +450
- SB-Halberg: CDU +800
- SB-West: SPD +550
- SB-Dudweiler: SPD +300
- SB-Center: SPD +750

Total: CDU +1,250 (+0.8 %)

The smaller towns will probably report first on election eve, so we might see a "black mirage". As SB center accounts for 1/3 of the total district vote (that's my borough, btw ), it will matter a lot (and report last in all likelihood). If AKK is underperforming in the suburbs on election eve, she's probably done. If SB-Center is flipping from SPD to CDU early on or the margin there is super tight, Ortleb is on track to lose this district (although she's almost safe in the Bundestag as #2 on the SPD list).

[Astatine]

-Püttlingen: AKK's hometown, suburban, many "typical" middle class households, extremely Catholic - 11,900

I always thought of Püttlingen as one of these typical industrial/post-industrial Saarland towns, because of anecdotes about the strength of the DKP there. Or did I mix something up?

Yes, you're not wrong, but it's not as industrial as Völklingen for instance. Nevertheless, out of all townships in district 296, Püttlingen delivered the best result for the Christian Democrats in 2017 (36.9 %). Blue-collar workers are more of an exception there nowadays, and the general structure of the town is typical Saarland suburbia (comparable to Riegelsberg).

The DKP strength was more of a local phenomenon. A union activist who was member of many clubs in Püttlingen was their leader there over many years and built up structures for the party. His name was Franz Hertel and he was member of the town council from 1968 until 2013 - He was the main reason the DKP was so strong. The local DKP never hesitated to cooperate with the CDU on local level, tho. Focussing on kitchen table issues..

[Astatine]

It would actually be glorious for Die Linke to fall under 5% and returning to a five faction Bundestag. Of course, in an ideal world the AfD would also be out, but that's not going to happen. At least not in 2021. Less faction would generally make government formation easier.

Given the weakness of Die Linke, there's very likely not going to be an R2G majority, so trafficlight coalition would be the only real alternative to the CDU. However, I think this would be much easier to negotiate with the SPD and Olaf Scholz at helm rather than the Greens.

Could the FDP justify supporting an SPD-led government?

A traffic light coalition led by the Social Democrats - possibly. One led by Greens - doubtful.

[Astatine]

Drama at the Saar, again.

Not trying to become too tenderesque by always posting about my home state, but if there is something going that might affect federal politics, I'd go for it.

The Greens are electing their state list for the federal election, but the state party is in complete disarray. The Greens here are divided between the wing around Hubert Ulrich, the former state party leader, and his opponents. Ulrich essentially has built up a large local party with many supporters (his local Greens account for around half of the membership base in the whole state), hence being heavily influential although he retired from the top position after the party fell out of the Landtag in 2017.

His influence led to the downfall of Green Party state leader Tina Schöpfer, who was defeated three times when she ran for the top spot.

Ulrich has just now been elected on #1 spot for the federal list, which is a violation of the Green Party statutes. The statutes state that the first spot is reserved for a woman, although the Saar state party was excepted from that rule (in compensation, #2 and #3 were reserved for women) until the last election, but now they have to follow the federal rules. The incumbent Green Party MP Markus Tressel opted to retire.

If a violation of party statutes (also regarding invitations to the party congress) is really the case, then the state party list might be invalidated and in worst case, if there is not enough time for another party congress until the list filing deadlines, the Greens might not even be allowed to run in Saarland, as they'd lack a list.
Which Ulrich would honestly deserve, lol.

[Astatine]

Some more details on why exactly the results of the party congress of the Saar Greens might be invalidated:

The Green statutes require that the first spot on a list for an election has to be occupied by a woman. Only if no woman is elected to the top position, anyone can run for it (men and women).
In this case, Green state party leader Tina Schöpfer ran for the the position, but the delegates voted against her in three ballots, so she retracted her candidacy.

Now, the convention voted on whether the election for the first state list spot should be opened to anyone. The delegates decided to do this, so in the next ballot, former state party leader Hubert Ulrich ran against Jeanne Dillschneider, the state Green Youth leader who was nominated by the state party chairboard.

Ulrich defeated Dillschneider, but some delegates questioned the ambiguous party statutes. It's now up for interpretation whether a man can run for the first spot if all women that could potentially run have already denied interest in a candidacy or whether an election between a woman and a man is allowed according to the statutes. A female delegate claimed she would have intended to run, hence she might bring this up to intra-party arbitration.

Now, state party leader Schöpfer was heavily rejected by the delegates in the ballots for the next spots. The candidate for #2 was asked what she thinks of CO2 emission trading schemes and didn't know what that is, but was elected nevertheless as she got the backing of Ulrich.

She even replaced Dillschneider as deputy leader of the state party. The whole chairboard is now full of Ulrich confidantes, and humiliated party leader Schöpfer just opted to not run for re-election.

The statutes also state that the convention has to be presided by a woman for at least 50 % of the time, and as of now it remains questionable whether that happened. If intra-party arbitration finds the convention violating the statutes, it would have to be repeated which is close to impossible as the deadline for the federal election lists is the 19th of July. And as some time between the announcement and the convention is required by statutes as well, we could very well end up with the Greens only running in 15/16 states - something that has never happened before.

The whole convention could also be ruled valid, which would lead to an outburst among the younger members. So yeah, that's all a mess with only regional impact as of now, but it could potentially escalate.

For the German posters among us who might want to watch the live stream of this hilarious drama: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCkUSgphnh0

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Am i misunderstanding this, or did the FDP just say that while they would never tolerate Traffic Light under a Green PM, they would however do so under Scholz? 🤔

Kinda yes, although that's not official yet. I guess by announcing that in advance the least damage would be done to the party (compared to if potential coalition negotiations failed again due to the FDP).

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Saar Greens in continuous disarray:

After their tumultuous convention on Sunday, the Green Youth and several higher-ranking members announced their refusal to campaign for the Saar Greens. Annalena Baerbock condemned the result of the convention, stating she wished it would have been different, and the federal Greens won't cooperate with the Saar Greens during the federal election campaign (under the current conditions).

The General Secretary of the Greens has recommended the current list be withdrawn, so there could still be enough time to have another convention. If not, intra-party arbitration might result in an invalidation of the list, which would mean (as explained before): no Green list in Saarland (would change 0.1 % of the final result, maybe?), but also a slight to moderate damage to the Green brand (and here, where the first state election after the federal elections is going to take place, the Green brand is completely burnt now).

Well, yesterday a part of the convention live stream was leaked, and it is circulating on Twitter and has already reached national media. The candidate on the 2nd list spot, Irina Gaydukova, was asked three questions she could barely find an answer to ("What's your opinion of biking policy?"-"Positive, what else do you expect from a Green Party member?"; "How can social equality and environmental policy go hand in hand?"-"Do I have time to think about it"; "What do you think of the CO2 emission trading schema"-"..."-"You don't have to answer"). It's clear she was just put on the list by Ulrich to defeat the then-state party leader Tina Schöpfer, and no matter whether she had a blackout, the damage is done. The narrative of most news outlets about the convention is "Green elected a man on top spot, Baerbock wants this reversed, and the woman running on 2nd spot is incompetent".
@German posters here: If you want to understand more about the situation, I'd recommend the SR Online articles about the matter. The background and context of the full conflict is explained thoroughly and well there.

So today, the newly elected co-state party leader Ralph Rouget resigned after 5 days in office, together with a chairboard member. Gaydukova herself cut all ties from the party and ended her membership, resigned from her position as deputy leader and her seat on local level.
Now, with Gaydukova out, I am not sure whether the list in its current form could even be submitted (assuming she refuses to sign the official documents required for a candidacy) or whether a replacement candidate has to be elected (in a new convention) or if the candidates behind her just move up by one spot on the list – Which once again, would be against Green statutes, as men would occupy the uneven list spots.

It's just Saarland but that's definitely not something Baerbock would've wanted to be the dominating topic of the week with regards to news about her party.

Update: The woman running on the third spot of the list has just withdrawn from her candidacy.

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After the Baerbock CV controversy, the failed Saxony-Anhalt state election, discussions about proposals of increased gas prices and the tumultuous Saar Green convention, the Green Party headquarter won't be too happy about a new controversy surrounding a book by Annalena Baerbock. She allegedly quoted texts from other authors without citing the sources.

The allegations are relatively weak, as her book is not a Ph.D. thesis or scientific work, but the medial reception is still there and that's not something I'd want the week to start with if I were Annalena Baerbock.
Supposedly, she included content from the website of the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (BpB, Federal Agency for Civic Education) in her book and according to the BpB, excerpts from their website need to be cited with the corresponding source.

This story is one of several small ones that combined altogether are probably going to hurt her reputation. Yeah, it's nothing too serious, but again, we're in the race for the most influential office in Germany and her response to most of the controversies surrounding her didn't appear to be very professional.
I wouldn't be too surprised if we'll see some polls with the SPD overtaking the Greens (maybe only narrowly and it could be occasional outliers), but I guess - if the CDU/CSU alliance doesn't make any substantial mistakes - the race for the first spot is probably over. There's not one week without at least some negative press for the Greens, and with the Saar Green issue still unresolved, this streak might continue.
The whole Hubert Ulrich affair completely overshadowed the Green response to the CDU/CSU election manifesto last week for instance.

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Approval ratings:


Preferred Chancellor:


Those numbers aren't too bad for Scholz, but the SPD is still lagging behind in federal polling and preferred governmental party:

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There are Allensbach, Kantar (Emnid), Forsa, Forsch’gr. Wahlen, GMS, Infratest dimap, INSA and YouGov polls. Which one is more reliable?

And Yougov is a joke.

I am member of the YouGov user database and actually INSA conducts at least some of their polls over YouGov. Some of the polls I took part in were clearly labeled as INSA polls.

Btw, the biggest joke pollster is still Civey. They only get away with their bullsh*t polling due to being partnered with several online news platforms (especially Spiegel), but their methodology is amongst the must dubious. Anyone can participate and the results are magically weighed according to personal data the user sets (zip code, gender, age). Interestingly, the daily Civey polling results (especially for state elections) change heavily after either Infratest or FGW dump a new poll.

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The chaos surrounding the Saar Greens has reached its climax today, and it's more likely than not that the Greens will not be on the ballot in September in my home state.

This week, intra-party arbitration ruled the list is violating the party statutes as well as federal election rules. Party members who were not delegates but only represented the senior and youth wing took part in the list vote, which is not allowed according to federal law.

The alliance against Hubert Ulrich filed a motion for a party convention for tomorrow, which was first granted. Then, members of the chair board (Ulrich confidantes) refused to hold a vote on new party leadership, resulting in the resignation of the state party chairwoman, the general secretary and a deputy chairman.
Then, the federal Green arbitration court ruled that the delegates from Ulrich's local party, Saarlouis, are not allowed to vote on a state convention as their selection was intransparent - they're making up ⅓ of all delegates.  

As a reaction to this, the remaining chair board decided to just cancel the convention tomorrow. Theoretically, the federal chair board could force the Saar Greens to convene, but it remains unclear whether enough delegates would even show up.

So as of now, the Saar Greens just have a list that was ruled invalid already and would likely not get accepted by the state's electoral commission on Monday.
There is still a chance that the Greens just submit the old list with Ulrich at the top and it does get accepted by the electoral commission, or that an emergency convention tomorrow could still elect a list spontaneously. But as of now, it is highly likely that the Greens can only get elected in 15 states.

The Saar Linke also has issues with their list btw, not as severe as the Greens', but in an absolutely stunning scenario, both Linke and Greens wouldn't be on the ballot. Unlikely, but not completely impossible.

UPDATE: The national chair board indeed will try to force the state party to hold the convention. If the state chair board is taking steps against the federal decision or ignoring it, all of its members might get removed from their positions.

[Astatine]

The Saar Greens have elected a new top candidate - Green Youth chairwoman Jeanne Dillschneider. Seems like the issue is settled for now, although Ulrich supporters might still consider legal measures. Monday will tell whether the exclusion of Saarlouis delegates was legitimate.

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The list for the Greens in Saarland was officially rejected today because of several formal failures (exclusion of Saarlouis delegates etc.).
The list of the Linke for Saarland was accepted.

The AfD list in Bremen was also rejected for formal reasons.

Damn, has that ever happened before in Germany? Two major parties failing to submit valid lists?

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Since 1949, has the FDP already won a district? Or all the FDP representatives came from the party list, elected in the proportional election?

FDP has won some districts directly in 1949 (party system was emerging) and 1953 (strategic alliance with DP and CDU/CSU) as well as one district each in 1957 (after reunification with Saarland, the FDP sister party DPS had run a key figure in the process in a district) and 1990 (candidate supported by reunification of GDR icon Genscher in Halle, Saxony Anhalt).

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https://twitter.com/Wahlrecht_de/status/1422948692911443970?s=19

Outlier for now, but other polls have already indicated that this race is getting closer.

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The federal election committee is constituting today to decide about appeals against rulings of the state election committees (9 in total), including the rejection of the lists of AfD in Bremen and Greens in Saarland, besides some minor corrections on the list such as the removal of candidates of some minor parties from their lists.

It would be highly unusual if the federal election committee overruled the respective state committee's decisions, although AfD's chances are probably slightly better than the Greens'. The AfD list was rejected for formal reasons mostly (that won't be fixed because the person who is supposed to sign a document is refusing to do so, but could be perceived a "minor mistake"), while the Green list was described as "extremely undemocratic" due to the legally unreasoned exclusion of delegates.

I still guess that both appeals will get rejected, though.

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The federal election committee granted the AfD's appeal to their exclusion from the ballot in Bremen (same with Free Voters in Bremen btw, both were initially barred from running for formal reasons), while the Greens are officially out in Saarland.

The Greens cannot appeal this decision until after the election. In theory, the whole federal election could be overruled if the appeal to the Constitutional Court were to be successful, but it is neither granted the Greens want to go that far nor is there a legitimate chance the appeal would succeed.

My home state is really... special.

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The federal election committee granted the AfD's appeal to their exclusion from the ballot in Bremen (same with Free Voters in Bremen btw, both were initially barred from running for formal reasons), while the Greens are officially out in Saarland.

The Greens cannot appeal this decision until after the election. In theory, the whole federal election could be overruled if the appeal to the Constitutional Court were to be successful, but it is neither granted the Greens want to go that far nor is there a legitimate chance the appeal would succeed.

My home state is really... special.

Saarland's election results could surely be very interesting this year. I'd very much like to see whether Green voters will even bother going to the polls--which I think is likely because the Greens have probably the most educated electorate--and what their second preferences are.

It will also be interesting to see how the district vote for the Greens will develop. Potentially, there could be at least some voters who might not be too invested into politics to tell the difference between district and proportional vote but lean Green and might just end up voting for the respective Green district candidate... which would essentially be a wasted vote and could be crucial in District 296 which was decided by <1 % in 2017. 

The result for the Ecological Democratic Party (ÖDP), who are fringe eco-cons with esoteric tendencies, could also be disproportionately high. ÖDP never had strong local representation here, but another fringe small party with which ÖDP used to ally some years ago (Family Party) did get up to 3 % in state elections here. ÖDP has no municipal seats at all in Saarland (not accounting for some loosely cooperating voter group in a small town), but some political prominence. Former FDP Saar General Secretary and MEP Jorgo Chatzimarkakis is the leader of the ÖDP Saar and his wife Manuela Ripa is currently the sole ÖDP MEP.

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Scholz also probably has the majority of Linke on his side, given how the federal Linke party does not campaign for the PM slot and instead prefers to enter coalitions with reformist parties. Those voters are likely committed to Linke - they have to be after everything that has happened - but still prefer Scholz.

The FDP lack a clear preferred option, and AfD voters support nobody.

So the numbers are probably a bit deceptive, but it does suggest two things: Laschet still personally has work to do in order to recover from the leadership battles, and the Greens have some voters who might go for the SPD if given the opportunity.

The Linke would never campaign for the Chancellor slot, as it is simply impossible to achieve that as a non-Volkspartei ("major party"). The only party besides CDU/CSU and SPD that has ever stated ambitions for the Chancellors' office was the FDP in 2002, and that attempt failed miserably ("Project 18"). The Greens only nominated a Chancellor candidate this year since it's within the range of possibilities.

FDP voters would probably lean towards Laschet though, lots of the liberal base are disaffected CDU voters. Support for Baerbock would probably be lowest among them.

Ah, and today a new poll got dropped that sees the Free Voters at 3.5 %. Doubtful they'll make it, but keep an eye on it if Laschet continues to be a lackluster candidate. The FW leader Aiwanger got some media attention recently for his refusal to get vaccinated.