Why are German opinion polls so static?

[Jacobtm]

All data:



Averages for each month:



So is no one even campaigning or what? It seems like voters have made  up their mind and only a very small % of people are wavering at all. Are things about to heat up as the election gets closer, or are German voters just already decided?

http://www.abehnisch.com/btw09.html

[minionofmidas]

Because the German electorate - or more strictly the West German, nonbavarian electorate - is insanely polarized. Half of those people who might vote would never vote CDU or FDP except perhaps in a local election, and almost as many would never vote SPD, Greens or Left except perhaps in a local election. The CDU wins elections by driving turnout down (okay, that's not quite fair. The CDU wins elections by the SPD driving turnout down) as the conservative electorate includes more people who will always vote as a matter of course.

[Jacobtm]

It looks like from these polls the CDU/FDP have 50% or so, while the SDP, Left and Greens have about 45%.

I know the greens have said that they might consider a coalition involving the CDU, but not if the FDP is involved; any chance this might change if the CDU/FDP have something like 48% of the seats and they don't wanna bother with the SDP anymore?

[Hans-im-Glück]

It looks like from these polls the CDU/FDP have 50% or so, while the SDP, Left and Greens have about 45%.

I know the greens have said that they might consider a coalition involving the CDU, but not if the FDP is involved; any chance this might change if the CDU/FDP have something like 48% of the seats and they don't wanna bother with the SDP anymore?

When CDU/CSU-FDP have no majority then it give 4 more years a CDU/CSU-SPD coalition. Maybe a SPD-GREEN-FDP coalition, but i think that doesn't work. The differences between this 3 parties are to big (Economic).  A CDU/CSU-FDP-GREEN coalition is imposable. I don't see the Bavarian CSU and the GREENS come together.

[Verily]

Mostly, the Greens and FDP refuse to work together as I recall. That was the Green objection to a "Jamaica" coalition after the 2005 election, anyway.

[Hans-im-Glück]

Mostly, the Greens and FDP refuse to work together as I recall. That was the Green objection to a "Jamaica" coalition after the 2005 election, anyway.

Greens and FDP don't work good together, but 2005 it was the CSU and Stoiber who was against a "Jamaica-coalition". The Greens stand for all what the CSU hates

[minionofmidas]

CDU-Green can work on a local level if CDU and Greens are remotely similar in strength (say less than 2.5 to 1 or so although really it's a matter of CDU attitude more than anything else) and all the other alternatives have been tried, tested, and found wanting.
Greens just doing the majority-provider for a CDU-CSU-FDP coalition is a non-option. There are some stone dumb Green parliamentarians, but none dumb enough not to know that the word for doing that is "suicide".

[Verily]

Greens just doing the majority-provider for a CDU-CSU-FDP coalition is a non-option. There are some stone dumb Green parliamentarians, but none dumb enough not to know that the word for doing that is "suicide".

Of course. That would be Die Linke's dream come true.

[Hans-im-Glück]

Greens just doing the majority-provider for a CDU-CSU-FDP coalition is a non-option. There are some stone dumb Green parliamentarians, but none dumb enough not to know that the word for doing that is "suicide".

Of course. That would be Die Linke's dream come true.

It is true that the Greens make suicide as majority-provider for a CDU/CSU-FDP coalition, but I'm not sure that Die Linke make the profit. Die Linke and the Greens have different voters.

In a traffic light coalition the FDP would make suicide too and when it gives 4 more years CDU/CSU-SPD i see the end of the SPD coming . Then the Linke would be happy.

[minionofmidas]

Die Linke and the Greens have different voters.

(Talking about West German Linke patterns exclusively, o/c)
Not wrong.

But not nearly as true as the media want you to think. The PDS' early pre-2005 Western strongholds are the Green strongholds, of course. (Apart from the very weak PDS showings in Baden-Württemberg and the Bavarian cities - but within these, the rule applies again). And while these include nearly all of the handful of loons who voted DKP in the 80s, it's safe from a sociodemographic pov to consider the pre-2005 west German PDS as part of a "macro-Green" party, as it were.
The majority of the Left's 2005 gain came from SPD voters (or even non-voters), not the Greens, of course (especially as it continues to be very weak in South Germany). But I'm not actually convinced the Left took a larger share of the SPD's voters than of the Greens' voters. Certainly, in neighborhoods where SPD and Greens are roughly equal - and these areas remain Left strongholds - a majority of the Left's voters appear to be former Greens. Though the strongest results come more typically from inner-city SPD stronghold places with a noticeable Green presence, and here these votes seem mostly not to come from the Greens. (Actually matters are complicated by new voters, more precisely newly naturalized voters. SPD, Greens and Left all do above average here, and they exist in large numbers in these very neighborhoods o/c. And then, in some of these locales, Greens may be holding their ground despite losses to the left due to creeping yuppification).
There is also the classic "black-green" neighborhood - the posh inner suburb or even city area with above average CDU and Green, very high FDP, and low SPD and Left vote shares. Obviously, that type of Green rarely votes Left (though again, perhaps more often than the kind of person who votes SPD here.) But contrary to what the media wants you to think, that's not really where the majority of the Green vote is coming from. And emphatically not where the Green gains are.

[Hans-im-Glück]

@Lewis

The people who votes for the Linke I know are mostly ex-SPD voters. 70% of them are activists or members of trade unions (IG Metall or IG BCE). They never vote for the Greens. Most of them are economical very left, but socially centrist or right, only a small minority of them are left. I think this people vote earlier for the NPD like for the Greens. I know that in the center of big cities like Frankfurt, München etc. it gives people of the Linke they vote before Green, but i come from a small town and many people lives in regions like me. The CDU-Green regions exist, but they are not typical for the Green voters. The Green party and the Linke lives mainly from Ex-SPD voters. The difference is for the Now-Green voters is the socially issues more important, for the Now-Linke voters the economic.

[minionofmidas]

@Lewis

The people who votes for the Linke I know are mostly ex-SPD voters. 70% of them are activists or members of trade unions (IG Metall or IG BCE). They never vote for the Greens. Most of them are economical very left, but socially centrist or right, only a small minority of them are left. I think this people vote earlier for the NPD like for the Greens. I know that in the center of big cities like Frankfurt, München etc. it gives people of the Linke they vote before Green, but i come from a small town and many people lives in regions like me.

Oh, all true of course. But check where the Left's strongest results are (Excluding the Saar and adjoining parts of Rhineland-Pfalz).

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Well, nyes. For some of those hardcore Green voters, the last time they voted SPD was in 1980 or something. (And they stayed home in 1990 because they didn't like the state of the Green Party and they didn't like the news coverage, either. ) Others who are younger have never actually voted SPD. At least, not in the list vote. But would, without a moment's pause, if SPD, CDU and FDP were the only options.
Taking all that into account and counting it as "used to vote SPD", the Greens in the Black-Green areas all used to vote SPD, actually.