German Elections & Politics

[Tender Branson]

First projections based on already counted precincts, not exit polls anymore:

ARD



ZDF

[Former President tack50]

So it's official then. The Schulz-Zug has completely derailed I guess.

[Mike88]

So it's official then. The Schulz-Zug has completely derailed I guess.

They still have North Rhine-Westphalia next week, but even there things don't look that great.

[ApatheticAustrian]

new trend:

big, underpolled pro-cdu-vote.

i guess ashamed afd-voters who wouldn't talk about their cdu-vote in public.

[Sozialliberal]

The NDR host called it the "Küsten Koalition" (the Coastal Coalition, I presume). What does that exactly refer to? Is that just because Schleswig-Holstein has a lot of coast? Or does the parties in the government do better along the coast?

The name I heard was "Küsten-Ampel" (i.e. coastal streetlights) which refers to the "Ampel" coalition (red SPD, yellow FDP, green Greens), but with the SSW instead of the FDP.
And yes, I think it is just because Schleswig-Holstein has a lot of coast.

This coalition was originally termed as "Dänen-Ampel" ("Dane traffic light"). A traffic-light coalition usually consists of the SPD, the FDP and the Greens because the parties' traditional colours match the colours of a traffic light (red, yellow and green). In a "Dane traffic light", the SSW takes the place of the FDP. However, the term "Dänen-Ampel" was used as a pejorative by the CDU in the 2005 and 2012 state elections, which is why they were accused of running an anti-Danish campaign. So it's understandable that the parties of the "Dane traffic light" wanted to have a more positive-sounding name for their coalition. That's how the terms "Küsten-Ampel" (coastal traffic light) and "Küstenkoalition" (coastal coalition) came into being. These terms most likely refer to the fact that SH is the only German state that borders both the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.

[DavidB.]

Still second lowest turnout ever: 66%.

[Bumaye]

Results by gender. (EDIT: Women on top, men below)   
  
  
  

[Bumaye]

Result by education. Right side is highly educated: 
 
 
 
When it comes to voters movement surprisingly the AfD has a rather low share of non-voters. 
 
 
 
They got the bulge of their votes from smaller parties, presumably the protest voters from the Pirate party.   
 

[rob in cal]

   Interesting that the Greens still got 8% of the non-highly educated, and Die Linke doing better among highly educated then non.

[Sozialliberal]

How the top candidate of each party has commented on coalition options since the announcement of the first projection:

CDU: Prefers a Jamaica coalition (CDU + Greens + FDP), but has also said that he doesn't rule out a grand coalition (CDU + SPD).
SPD: Open towards participation in government in spite of loss of votes.
Greens: Has said that they can probably implement more of their policies in a traffic-light coalition (SPD + Greens + FDP), but open to a Jamaica coalition as well.
FDP: Has said that he can hardly imagine a coalition led by SPD top candidate Albig, spoke in favour of a Jamaica coalition before the election.

[Bumaye]

   Interesting that the Greens still got 8% of the non-highly educated, and Die Linke doing better among highly educated then non.

 
 
Nothing new, really. FDP, Greens and Die Linke are the parties that always score better with higher educated people. I actually put together 4 recent state elections based on the results by education earlier today: https://i.imgur.com/6HWryqU.png 

[Beagle]

What is the Überhangmandate situation? The CDU looks like it can take 25-6 seats on the basis of first votes, while the ARD/ZDF distribution has them at 24.

[Bumaye]

What is the Überhangmandate situation? The CDU looks like it can take 25-6 seats on the basis of first votes, while the ARD/ZDF distribution has them at 24.

 
 
1 Überhangmandat and 1 or 3 Ausgleichsmandate.

[Tender Branson]

Final result of the Schleswig-Holstein state election:

https://www.landtagswahl-sh.de/wahlen.php?site=left/gebiete&wahl=363#index.php?site=right/ergebnis&wahl=363&anzeige=0&gebiet=1&idx=0&typ=1&stimme=2&flip=1&mode=grafik&hoch=0

The CDU-share went down to 32% overnight, from 33.5% in the projections - making my prediction slightly less accurate. But I'm still happy with it, because I correctly predicted the collapse of the SPD.

[Bumaye]

Some other - quite funny - statistics from yesterdays election: 75% of the voters describe the economical situation of the state as positive. During the rule of the CDU in 2009 it were only 23%. Yet a majority of 53% say that the economy was one of the deciding factors - to vote for the CDU. 
 
 
 

[Tender Branson]

The big NRW state election (18 million people) is coming up on Sunday and Hannelore Kraft (SPD) may be voted out of office:



Compared with their last poll:

-4% for the SPD
+3% for the CDU
+3% for the FDP
-3% for the AfD
+1% for Others

CDU-FDP-Greens would be possible.

[palandio]

Yeah, I'm really intrigued how this turns out. Kraft herself still seems to be reasonably popular, although not as much as at some point in the past. There seems to be rising discontent on some issues like security (think the Amri case), education and the social and economic development of parts of the inner Ruhr bassin (roughly north of the highway A40).

NRW is 22% of Germany (population-wise) and it contains a mix of SPD strongholds, but also rural Catholic and conservative areas, as well as urban and surban swing areas in the Rhineland, therefore you could count it as a mini-federal election and its trends can tell something about the national trend. In federal elections the NRW SPD usually overperforms the federal SPD results by ca. 6 percentage points, so as a rule of thumb you might take the SPD result in NRW and subtract 6 percentage points to get where the SPD stands federally. This is probably even generous towards the SPD because they have weak Greens and a reasonably popular incumbent governor, who is smart enough not to give an interview to a gossip magazine two weaks before the election and speak bad about his ex-wife (Albig, Schleswig-Holstein).

[Tender Branson]

Latest NRW-poll for Sunday (YouGov for Sat1):

[mvd10]

Is Kraft still regarded as a possible future SPD leader or did her window close? Losing the state elections surely would put an end to that speculation.

[ApatheticAustrian]

Is Kraft still regarded as a possible future SPD leader or did her window close? Losing the state elections surely would put an end to that speculation.

she secluded herself for years from the national spotlight and was seemingly not interested...and really meant it...so no, she shouldn't be seen as a schulz/gabriel successor anyway.

[jaichind]

Latest NRW-poll for Sunday (YouGov for Sat1):

Wow, if the election turns out this way  that would be another record low for SPD+CDU vote share in NRW.

What is also funny is under this scenario even SPD-Green-Linke is not a viable majority

[ApatheticAustrian]

kraft hast rejected a coalition with the linkspartei anyway.

lindner has promised not to do an "ampel coalition" and the greens have vetoed the jamaica coalition in NRW....

meaning: either the cdu outperforms their polls massively and the FDP is winning too and they narrowly edging out a majority (only possible if your believe in the current under-polled trends of the last 2 state elections) or groko forever.

[jaichind]

kraft hast rejected a coalition with the linkspartei anyway.

lindner has promised not to do an "ampel coalition" and the greens have vetoed the jamaica coalition in NRW....

meaning: either the cdu outperforms their polls massively and the FDP is winning too and they narrowly edging out a majority (only possible if your believe in the current under-polled trends of the last 2 state elections) or groko forever.

With AfD winning near double digits at many state levels and at the federal level, SPD ruling out an alliance with Linke for fear of bleeding votes to CDU, and Greens often showing discomfort with being in an alliance with FDP, means that unless SPD or CDU beats the other decisively (like Bavaria) it is hard to avoid a Grand Coalition across the board.

[palandio]

Latest NRW-poll for Sunday (YouGov for Sat1):

Linke at 8% seems quite a lot to me. If this was really true, it would be quite a breakthrough for them in the West. The normal pattern until now seems that before regional elections the Linke is polling at ca. 5% and then they get only 3% or so. Until proven incorrect I expect them not to cross the threshold, judging from the recent past. But if they do so convincingly, it would change the game considerably.

[Tender Branson]

Final NRW poll (ZDF/FGW):



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