🇩🇪 German state & local elections

[Astatine]

Any particular reason why the Schleswig-Holstein Union would prefer the FDP over the Greens, or visa versa? The government right now is Jamaica after all.

CDU is generally closest to FDP and SPD closest to Greens, but classical bloc division is a thing of the past now. You will barely have any election where Red-Green or Black-Yellow gets a majority, most of those elections are flukes (NRW 2017) or special circumstances (Hamburg 2020, being a very left-wing city in general). Ofc there are exceptions to the rule, but in general if there is a chance, CDU and FDP as well as SPD and Greens find together. In S-H, CDU and FDP have a long tradition of governing and cooperating together, so if black-yellow gets a majority on its own, it's likely to be formed. Jamaica was more of a forced choice because nobody wanted a GroKo and neither black-yellow nor black-green had an own majority. But they've been working along well in the past years.

If black-green gets a majority but black-yellow doesn't, it's the most probable option.

[Astatine]

Thomas LOSSe-Müller (SPD)

[Astatine]

CDU-Greens, CDU-FDP and even CDU-SSW with a majority if AfD remains out. ARD suggests CDU is one seat short of an absolute majority.

[Astatine]

Is this the first time AfD has not been elected to a state parliament since the refugee crisis?

Yup, though in the 2020 Hamburg state elections, exit polls initially saw them out too. In Saarland and Thuringia the last precinct to report decided the fate of Greens and FDP.

[Astatine]

Is this the first time AfD has not been elected to a state parliament since the refugee crisis?

Yup, though in the 2020 Hamburg state elections, exit polls initially saw them out too. In Saarland and Thuringia the last precinct to report decided the fate of Greens and FDP.

Today's state election in Schleswig-Holstein is the third state or federal level election in the entire party's history in which the AfD has failed to pass the 5% threshold.

The first two instances were the federal election (4.7%) and the Hessian state election (4.1%) that were both held on September 22, 2013.

(Coincidentally, these were also the final two state/federal level elections that were held in Germany prior to the Russian invasions of Crimea and Donbas.)

The first time the AfD obtained more than 5% of the vote was in the European Parliament election on May 25, 2014, followed by similar results in the state elections in Saxony, Brandenburg, and Thuringia later the same year. The AfD has always passed the 5% threshold ever since.

Election results since 2020:

- Hamburg '20: 5.1% (-0.8)
- RLP '21: 8.3% (-4.3)
- B-W '21: 9.7% (-5.4)
- Saxony-Anhalt '21: 20.8% (-3.5)
- M-V '21: 16.7% (-4.1)
- Berlin '21: 8.0% (-6.2)
- federal '21: 10.3% (-2.3)
- Saarland '21: 5.7% (-0.5)
- S-H '21: 4.5% (-1.4)

Consecutive losses for the 9th time.

[Astatine]

Some early morning takes:

- This election solidifies the trend that incumbents get reelected. Since the 2017 federal election, only one incumbent Minister-President got defeated, and that only happened because his opponent was way more popular than him. The times where parties receive over 40% in elections are not over yet. Doesn't mean too much for NRW next week though, since Hendrik Wüst is only mildly popular and hasn't been in office for long.
- Greens are still competition for SPD, only because CDU/CSU and SPD became the two largest parties once again in September it doesn't mean that the old "Volksparteien" recovered on a permanent basis.
- This is a warning sign for the FDP who almost halved their vote share and dropped to the worst result in Schleswig-Holstein in 20 years or so. Granted, they had a popular candidate for 6 elections in a row (Wolfgang Kubicki who's now in federal politics), but even though the party has surprisingly good numbers in party competences (Economy, Education, Jobs), much of their vote got swallowed by CDU. They need to increase their profile in the federal government, else 2025 could become nasty.
- AfD are beyond their peak and this might not be the only state parliament they will drop out of. The West has never been fertile ground for the party, but the party's increasing tilt to the extreme right and constant infighting doesn't bode well for elections in other states where they barely got more than 5% last time.
- Linke? In their worst crisis since foundation. The party was reduced to PDS/WASG numbers in two elections in Western states now. While the party had the East as stronghold to compensate their abysmal appeal to Western voters in the past, they're now losing votes everywhere. At this rate, doubtful if Linke can remain a parliamentary party in 2025.

[Astatine]

[Astatine]

NRW election:



My prediction wasn't that off, doesn't look good for SPD. This will definitely hurt Scholz.

This could still yield a red-green majority especially if thé FDP drops below 5%

Definitely, though it's still disappointing for Social Democrats.

Even with the FDP, a trafficlight coalition is still possible, though I'm skeptical FDP Leader Stamp is doing it although this could be his only path to staying in government since CDU/Greens don't need him and CDU/FDP lost its majority. I could also see a scenario in which SPD/Greens have a one seat majority and offer the FDP a place at the table to form a larger governing majority. In this case, the FDP might be open for it.

Glorious news, however: The streak of AfD losing votes compared to the last election continues.

I doubt that after crashing to a such a horrible result FDP will be open to join a SPD/Greens government.

[Astatine]

Current estimates:

ZDF:
CDU 35.3
SPD 27.5
Greens 17.9
AfD 5.6
FDP 5.5
Linke 2.2

ARD:
CDU 35.9
SPD 27.1
Greens 18.1
AfD 5.6
FDP 5.3
Linke 2.0

Red-Green seems increasingly less likely, at 98-99/199 seats in both estimates as of now. Before both ARD and ZDF had SPD/Greens at 99 seats.

[Astatine]

The winners and losers of this election:

Winners
Greens. Tripled their result, will be needed for a government (unless it's a GroKo, highly unlikely) and are clearly having the momentum right now. Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck are the most popular politicians, and the Greens are occupying offices on federal level that get most attention due to the current circumstances (Foreign Affairs, Economy).

CDU. They can still win elections, even with mediocre incumbents. While the CDU-FDP coalition lost its majority (the win in 2017 was a fluke anyway), holding Germany's most populous state was not a shoo-in and they actually scored the best result in NRW since 2005. A CDU Minister-President has not been reelected in NRW since 1962 (!). Even the scandals of the last weeks (Environment Minister resigning due to being on vacation during the 2021 floods) didn't seem to have hurt the party.

Losers
FDP. Worst result since 1995, which should not be the case even without a popular candidate such as Lindner. Their defeat was a combination of federal factors (traffic light coalition not being very popular among their more center-right base) and statewide problems, especially surrounding controversial Education Minister Yvonne Gebauer. Note that occupying the Education Department in NRW is a curse, Greens halved their vote share in 2017 with then-Education Minister Sylvia Löhrmann being quite unpopular as well.

SPD. They proclaimed the Social Democratic decade last year - turns out it's a Social Democratic semester. Scholz is struggling in the polls, he doesn't get the approvals Merkel had by any means and the state party had their own internal problems such as changing the leader 3 times since 2017. Lower Saxony needs to go well, which is likely as Stephan Weil is a popular incumbent - But obtaining the worst result in NRW history should worry the Social Democrats.

AfD. Another loss (5.4%, -2.0), but they made it narrowly. The party can rely on a small but stable voter base another time. Internal fights certainly don't help.

Linke. Don't deserve an own paragraph.

Turnout. Worst turnout in history of NRW, 55%, a massive decrease from 2017. While past elections had a mixed pattern (slight decreases that could be explained with Covid, increase in the 2021 federal elections), it is worrisome that turnout fell to low pre-2016 levels once again.

[Astatine]

Isn't it kind of awkward for there not to be a traffic light coalition in NRW when there is one on the federal level, and there is a comfortable majority for it in NRW? Kind of implying that traffic light isn't a normal expected situation and that the federal one is just a special circumstance?

No - The times of "bloc division" (Lagerwahlkampf) where one side (CDU/FDP vs. SPD/Greens[+Linke]) attempts to form a government no matter how the other performed (exception: GroKo) are over by now. The traffic light coalition transcends classical camps, and unlike in the past, no coalition option was formally excluded in the past. Coalitions beyond blocs (CDU/Greens, Jamaica, traffic light) are done on a case by case basis and not standard by any means.

It would be horrible optics to put the two biggest losers of the election in charge in a three party coalition, which is usually less stable than a coalition consisting of two parties only.

[Astatine]

CDU and Greens will go into formal coalition negotiations in Schleswig-Holstein, shunning out the FDP from government.