2013 Elections in Germany

[Iannis]

New Forsa poll (23.01.2013), Federal election:

CDU/CSU: 42%
SPD: 23%
Grüne: 14%
Linke: 8%

FDP: 4%
Piraten: 4%

CDU slightly short of absolute majority (42-45).
Red-Green far away from majority (37-50).

Looking at Lower Saxony example we can be quite sure about FDP overcoming the threshold with some loan from CDU voters.

Except that CDU supporters know now that a tactical vote for the FDP may actually hurt their own party rather than doing any good...

But making a coalition possible. After all at federal level there is need of a 2% tactical vote for FDP, not more, not 7% like in Lowe Saxony

[ZuWo]

New Forsa poll (23.01.2013), Federal election:

CDU/CSU: 42%
SPD: 23%
Grüne: 14%
Linke: 8%

FDP: 4%
Piraten: 4%

CDU slightly short of absolute majority (42-45).
Red-Green far away from majority (37-50).

Looking at Lower Saxony example we can be quite sure about FDP overcoming the threshold with some loan from CDU voters.

Except that CDU supporters know now that a tactical vote for the FDP may actually hurt their own party rather than doing any good...

In fact, the CDU didn't lose the Lower Saxony elections because of too many "loan votes" for the FDP. On the contrary, it's possible to claim that the party lost because of too few. If roughly 2000 additional CDU supporters had voted tactically for the FDP, the black-yellow coalition would have a majority of seats now.

http://www.wahlrecht.de/news/2013/landtagswahl-niedersachsen-2013.html#mehrheit

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[Franzl]

Allensbach, 23.01.2013, Federal Election:

CDU/CSU: 39%
SPD: 28%
Grüne: 14%
Linke: 7%
FDP: 5%

Piraten: 3%

Black-yellow government with no majority (44-49).
Red-green with no majority (42-46).

[Franknburger]

In fact, the CDU didn't lose the Lower Saxony elections because of too many "loan votes" for the FDP. On the contrary, it's possible to claim that the party lost because of too few. If roughly 2000 additional CDU supporters had voted tactically for the FDP, the black-yellow coalition would have a majority of seats now.

http://www.wahlrecht.de/news/2013/landtagswahl-niedersachsen-2013.html#mehrheit

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Yes, but if, instead of +2.000 (1.827, to be precise) FDP 'loan votes', it would have been 3.260 more loan votes, CDU would have lost their extra seat from FPTP compensation to SPD. In that case, they would still have been allowed to retain the "overhanging" extra FPTP seat, resulting in a tie. If it had even been 7.390 FDP loan votes more, CDU would have lost a regular seat, meaning FPTP compensation goes up from 2 to 4 extra seats. The compensation seats would be allocatesd 2 CDU, 1 SPD, 1 Grüne, and we are back at the current 1 seat red-green majority (with FDP and Grüne each having one seat more than according to the actual distribution).

Too complicated?  I guess the Lower Saxony constutional court could think so as well, if asked by anybody. However, CDU and FDP may hve problems to put their own electoral legislation before court, while SPD and Grüne don't have any reason to do so at the moment.

[minionofmidas]

There is no case for going to court. A simple "keep things proportional and the number of seats uneven" rule would have had the same result. Which is also not a "false winner" result.

Also, trying to argue you didn't really lose tends to look bad much quicker when you're the incumbent.

[Franzl]

State Oldenburg

CDU 41
SPD  31
FDP  13
GRN  15

State? Do you mean "Stadt"? That means city.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I mean old State Oldenburg living under Hanoverian Imperialismus.

At least British "rule" over Hanover was ended with this election once again.

[Franzl]

Infratest dimap, 24.01.2013, Federal Election:

CDU/CSU: 42%
SPD: 27%
Grüne: 14%
Linke: 6%

FDP: 4%
Piraten: 3%

[ERvND]

Given the last state election results, it should be clear by now that the FDP will easily get 5% of the vote - and more. Instead of CDU 42, FDP 4, I'd rather predict CDU 38, FDP 8.

I wonder why the pollster don't adjust their data accordingly.

[DL]

Because we are still 9 months away from an election and polls right now are not about doing election eve forecasts of what the actual results will be - at this stage they are measurements of how people say they will vote if an election were held today. Its not up to a polling company to arbitrarily decide that based on what happened in Lower Saxony - from now on in every poll we should subtract 4 points from the CDU and give it to the FDP.

[Franknburger]

Given the last state election results, it should be clear by now that the FDP will easily get 5% of the vote - and more. Instead of CDU 42, FDP 4, I'd rather predict CDU 38, FDP 8.

I wonder why the pollster don't adjust their data accordingly.

They are actually doing it, but don't speak about it. The exception is Forschungsgruppe Wahlen (should provide an update tomorrow), which publishes raw data alongside their projection. Last time, two weeks ago,  Forschungsgruppe Wahlen had switched 2% from CDU to FDP when turning the raw data into their projection.

So, my guess is that all pollsters still see generic FDP support at around 2%, but have already applied 2% 'loan vote adjustment' before publishing results. Feel free to make further adjustments, based on the Lower Saxony experience, but do so on your own risk

[ERvND]

Its not up to a polling company to arbitrarily decide that based on what happened in Lower Saxony - from now on in every poll we should subtract 4 points from the CDU and give it to the FDP.

It might be controversial, but it's standard practice for (German) pollsters to "adjust" their data according to secret formulas. So, what you get from German polling companies (regardless of the time of the poll), will always be that "weighted" numbers, not what people actually said.

Under this premise, I still wonder why they haven't adjusted their formulas yet. It's not about Lower Saxony alone, but about the last four state elections: In each case, the FDP was predicted to get less than 5% of the vote, and ended up with more than 8%. I see a clear pattern here (loan votes from CDU supporters), and I think it's time to include this observation into the weighted polls.    

[Franknburger]

Infratest dimap, 24.01.2013, Federal Election:

CDU/CSU: 42%
SPD: 27%
Grüne: 14%
Linke: 6%

FDP: 4%
Piraten: 3%

As German pollsters tend to make all kinds of 'loan vote'-related adjustments, I sometimes find it more informative to look at trends compared to their previous 'poll'  than at actual numbers. In this respect we have for infratest dimap compared to their last week's result:

CDU / FDP / others: unchanged
SPD +1
Grüne +1
Linke -1
Piraten -1

Looks like the "Steinbrück crash" is over, and Linke/ Piraten voters move towards red-green.

[You kip if you want to...]

Probably a silly question, but I'm assuming that Die Linke has some safe direct seats in the former GDR, so do they really need 5%?

[minionofmidas]

Probably a silly question, but I'm assuming that Die Linke has some safe direct seats in the former GDR, so do they really need 5%?

Two of them, so yeah.

[Benj]

Probably a silly question, but I'm assuming that Die Linke has some safe direct seats in the former GDR, so do they really need 5%?

They fell below the threshold and won only 2 FPTP seats (both in East Berlin, I believe) in 2002, so it does matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_2002

[Franknburger]

Probably a silly question, but I'm assuming that Die Linke has some safe direct seats in the former GDR, so do they really need 5%?

Two of them, so yeah.

They actually got 16 FPTP seats in 2009 (5 in Sachsen-Anhalt, 4 in Berlin, 4 in Brandeburg, 2 in Thüringen, 1 in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern).
Three of them (all in East-Berlin) are pretty safe (more than 20% margin in 2009), another one - Märkisch Oderland in Brandenburg - seems reasonably safe (13.4$ margin in 2004). The other twelve were pretty tight (less than 5% margin).

[LastVoter]

Could this be a problem for CDU in FPTP seats?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/bild-878468-449405.html

[TJ in Oregon]

Why is the CDU so strong in Sachsen relative to the rest of the former GDR?

[Franknburger]

Could this be a problem for CDU in FPTP seats?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/bild-878468-449405.html

Uncovering of the National Socialist Underground (NSU) terror cell in late 2011 has shocked the population and, among others, lead to significant decreases of the NPD vote in the recent State elections, which however, were all in the western part.

NPD strongholds in the East tend to be rural, depressed areas characterised by high uneployment and strong outmigration, especially of young females. Eastern Mecklenburg-Pomerania, the most prominent area in the Spegel map, has the highest unemployment rate in all Germany. However, the mapping technique overstates the actual problem, as most NPD-heavy communities are rather small. The village of Koblentz, e.g. where they reached 33%, has 227 inhabitants. On  electoral district level, they reached 10-15% in the rural eastern part of the state, but less than 5% in the area's larger cities of Greifswald and Neubrandenburg.

Even though the political micro-climate in these rural eastern regions is quite different from the West, the NSU shock should at least contain, probably even substantially depress the NPD vote in the federal election. In any case, the NPD is far from winning any FPTP seat. The question is what former NPD voters turning away from the party due to the NSU shock will do: If they stay at home (most likely), or vote for small parties, not much will change. If they, however, should switch to the Linke (rather unlikely, but not completely unthinkable in former East Germany), the CDU might lose Neubrandenburg, the most southern of the Mecjkenburg districts (see map in my previous post), which they only carried by less than 300 votes in 2009. The same may happen in Schwerin-Ludwigslust in the south-west of the state, which was won by the CDU by less than 1000 votes. However, it is also questionable whether the Linke will be able to repeat there strong 2009 showing.

In Saxony, CDU FPTP are pretty safe, especially in areas where the NPD is strong. If at all, the CDU is in danger of losing Leipzig, should Grüne voters decide to support the SPD candidate.

Thuringia is anyway quite a battlefield, with CDU, SPD and Linke runing neck-by-neck in several districts. In comparatively NPD-heavy Sonneberg-Saalfeld (the State's southernmost CDU FPTP district), the CDU in 2009 won by less than 1.000 votes against Linke. In the center of the state, however, the issue will be more whether the greens continue their upward trend in cities like Jena, Erfurt and Weimar and, by-vote-splitting, help the SPD to gain FPTP seats, than the existing, but compartively small rural NPD lean.    

[Kitteh]

Hmm, I didn't know the Greens won a FPTP seat. Is there any chance they'll take more than 1 this time? Maybe another in Berlin or Baden-Wurrtemburg?

[Franknburger]

Why is the CDU so strong in Sachsen relative to the rest of the former GDR?

Unlike in the West, the catholic-protestant divide hardly plays a role in the East, With the exeption of a few catholic enclaves, most notably the Eichsfeld in North-Western Thuringia, the East is culturally protestand and, after 40 years of communist rule, strongly secularised. Party allegiances were mainly formed in the 1990s according to experience with State-level governments.

When, after unification, the CDU exported party veterans to the East to become State PMs, Saxony  happened to receive the most capable, and most liberal of them, Kurt Biedenkopf, who ruled the State from 1990 to 2002. Being the heartland of the former GDR's automotive industry, the state furthermore attracted substantial investment and tended to outperform the rest of former East Germany.  Political stability and relative economic prosperity contained the Linke vote, and have helped the CDU to gain broad-based support.

In a similar way, Manfred Stolpe, former head of the Lutheran Church in the GDR and PM of Brandenburg form 1990 to 2002, turned that state into the SPD's stronhold in the East.

In the other States, governments were less stable, so they are much more swingy. 2009 with its disastrous SPD result is actually a bit misleading, the 2005 map below gives a better picture of regional party allegiances.

[Franknburger]

Hmm, I didn't know the Greens won a FPTP seat. Is there any chance they'll take more than 1 this time? Maybe another in Berlin or Baden-Wurrtemburg?

Berlin Kreuzberg-Prenzlauer Berg has traditionally been the by far strongest Grüne district (27.4% of PV votes in 2009). The next stongest districts in 2009 were:

Freiburg 22.8%
Berlin-Charlottenburg 22.1%
Berlin-Mitte 22.0%
Stuttgart I  22.0%
Berlin-Tempelhof 21.6%
Berlin-Pankow 19.8%
Köln II 19.8%
München-Mitte 19.4%

Except for Köln II, in all of the aforementionned the Grüne vote was higher than the SPD vote. If the SPD encouraged ticket-splitting of their voters, Freiburg and some more Berlin districts might be possible. Berlin-Mitte, where Grüne were the strongest party in 2009, and Berlin-Pankow, where Linke and CDU split up the remaining vote (currently held by Linke) look most promising. Berlin-Tempelhof might be in reach with substantial SPD ticket-splitting.

Berlin-Charlottenburg, Stuttgart I and München-Mitte, however will need a favourable federal trend for the combined green-red vote to overcome black-yellow.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Hmm, I didn't know the Greens won a FPTP seat. Is there any chance they'll take more than 1 this time? Maybe another in Berlin or Baden-Wurrtemburg?

Berlin Kreuzberg-Prenzlauer Berg has traditionally been the by far strongest Grüne district (27.4% of PV votes in 2009). The next stongest districts in 2009 were:

Freiburg 22.8%
Berlin-Charlottenburg 22.1%
Berlin-Mitte 22.0%
Stuttgart I  22.0%
Berlin-Tempelhof 21.6%
Berlin-Pankow 19.8%
Köln II 19.8%
München-Mitte 19.4%

Except for Köln II, in all of the aforementionned the Grüne vote was higher than the SPD vote. If the SPD encouraged ticket-splitting of their voters, Freiburg and some more Berlin districts might be possible. Berlin-Mitte, where Grüne were the strongest party in 2009, and Berlin-Pankow, where Linke and CDU split up the remaining vote (currently held by Linke) look most promising. Berlin-Tempelhof might be in reach with substantial SPD ticket-splitting.

Berlin-Charlottenburg, Stuttgart I and München-Mitte, however will need a favourable federal trend for the combined green-red vote to overcome black-yellow.

Could also depend on the candidates. For instance, Green federal chairman Cem Özdemir runs in Stuttgart I... while Öczan Mutlu, a member of the Berlin state parliament aiming to succeed the retiring Green Bundestag MP for the district, is the party's candidate in Berlin-Mitte.

Given the fact that the Greens just won the mayorship in Stuttgart and Özdemir is a national public figure, he has pretty good chances at winning the district IMO.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Could this be a problem for CDU in FPTP seats?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/bild-878468-449405.html

Could perhaps be a problem for the Left, actually.

After all, both the NPD and the Left compete for the anti-establishment/anti-mainstream protest vote in the eastern states.