🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Germany1994]

So the Bavarian election is on October 8th, and it's looking dire for the SPD; they're polling in the 8-10% range.

Looking at previous elections, the Bavarian SPD used to poll 25-30% in the 1990s, and then starting in the 2000s it suffered massive losses (especially 2003 and 2018).

Why exactly is this happening? 2003 I can guess as part of the backlash against the Schröder government, with the Agenda 2010 and renewed recession in 2002-2003. But what exactly is the broader story here? Is this a case of progressive voters in Bavaria getting frustrated that the SPD cannot win, and so are looking to the Greens to be their new hope?

Usually when a party collapses like this, it's because they did something while in power (or had some kind of scandal) to severely piss off their voters. But the SPD has not participated in government in Bavaria since 1946 - 1947, so that can't be it. Was there some kind of scandal in the state party that wrecked it? Or what is going on with the BayernSPD?

Hi, just logged in into the forum.  

Since I live in Bavaria I try to answer your question. They were in government for the last time from 1954-1957 actually and even had the Minister President with Wilhelm Hoegner at that time.

The SPD always had a rather weak party organisation outside of the bigger cities in Bavaria, in many rural areas there aren´t any local chapters anymore due to the very few (old) members left, the CSU on the other side is basically present everywhere. So the SPD can´t really win the "material war" before elections with election posters and so on.

And while the party is still kinda successful in local elections and many cities have mayors from their ranks (Munich, Regensburg,Ingolstadt,...) these mayors simply don´t wanna jump into a hopeless election campaign on the state level. Christian Ude, long time popular mayor of Munich was their leading candidate in 2013 and while he improved the party vote to 20,6 % he had to find out that popularity on the local level doesn´t automatically qualify you for bigger tasks, he showed limited knowledge about the state as a whole (putting cities in different districts than they actually are,...) and many thought he only ran because he couldn´t continue as mayor from 2014 on due to reaching the age limit for mayors in Bavaria.

Generally the party simply doesn´t have any popular and known politicans here, their leading candidate this time, Florian von Brunn is an uncharismatic party soldier with the presence of a dry slice of toast which is still unknown to a large part of the population.

And as Purple Unicorn already said the Greens on the other side are generally seen as more "fresh" and modern these days.

Hope I could help you.  

[Germany1994]

@President Johnson

Thanks. 

[Germany1994]

As the catholic/protestant cleavage has been important to shape the political landscape of Germany since the late 19th century the SPD has always been quite weak in Bavaria, historically, as their main base have been big industrial cities and at least partly industrialized protestant areas. So you have Munich, Nuremberg and surroundings and Upper Franconia, and that's basically it. Even Augsburg seems to have been never that of a stronghold.

Despite increasing secularization these confessional differences still play a role. When you compare election results of CSU and SPD you can still see that the former is generally weaker in the rural Protestant areas of Franconia than in areas that are more Catholic while with the latter it´s the other way around.

You want examples?? Here are the results for CSU and SPD from two neighbouring counties in Upper Franconia, Lichtenfels and Kulmbach.

Kulmbach - 59,6 % Protestant, 26,0 % Catholic (Census 2011)

1990 - CSU 51,2 % ,SPD 34,4 %
1994 - CSU 46,2 %, SPD 42,1 %
1998 - CSU 41,3 %, SPD 42,9 %
2003 - CSU 53,5 %, SPD 29,7 %
2008 - CSU 42,5 %, SPD 28,8 %
2013 - CSU 45,5 %, SPD 29,6 %
2018 - CSU 37,9 %, SPD 19,5 %


Lichtenfels - 59,6 % Catholic, 28,0 % Protestant (Census 2011)

1990 - CSU 62,3 % ,SPD 26,3 %
1994 - CSU 55,8 %, SPD 32,4 %
1998 - CSU 52,8 %, SPD 31,0 %
2003 - CSU 66,0 %, SPD 20,2 %
2008 - CSU 51,8 %, SPD 21,9 %
2013 - CSU 50,0 %, SPD 22,2 %
2018 - CSU 42,7 %, SPD 11,9 %

[Germany1994]

I also feel like since Bavaria is rather wealthy and economically doing well, the SPD does not really have any enticing topics for voters. The Greens have at least environmental protection and climate change, which seems to resonate more with voters.
Also, the Greens seem to increasingly do well in cities that are also doing relatively well - which are most Bavarian cities. I don't think the SPD can make up the detrimental, large losses they had in Munich anytime soon (19% loss for SPD, 19% gain for the Greens). The Greens also won Würzburg last time, came close in Regensburg and had above average gains in all bigger cities.
And the SPD does not have really any opportunity to make up for these losses anywhere else. The rural areas always voted more conservative and the few strongholds they had historically in rural, protestant areas are falling apart aswell.
The SPD could at least get decent results (while they were obviously not competitive for the CSU for a long time), because they really had not much competition for voters, which were dissatisfied with the CSU - especially in the bigger cities.

Back in the 90s they also had Renate Schmidt as party leader who was pretty known and respected even among many CSU voters. Nowadays almost nobody knows the leading politicans whether it is the party or caucus leader.