German Elections & Politics

[rob in cal]

   About 15% of the vote went to parties that failed to win any seats, assuming the Greens don't. The 5% rears its ugly head again.

[rob in cal]

   I just don't like the way thresholds distort  the overall proportional outcome of the vote, and wonder if there are voters who might have voted for smaller parties but don't because of fear of wasting their vote, thereby also distorting the outcome.  Poland in I believe 1993 was perhaps the worst case, with a huge amount of wasted votes, mostly going to right of center parties.

[rob in cal]

  Would it be fair to label the AFD, NPD and Alfa as the three most "right-wing" parties, on the migration issue at least?

[rob in cal]

  DL, that would be my choice, with a somewhat lower threshold as well.

  Also, the Tierschutz (animal rights party) is doing well with about 1.2% of the vote.  Wonder if that hurt the Greens?

[rob in cal]

  Hey, Alfa got .3% of the vote, clearly the sign of a party that should be respected as a potent political force.

[rob in cal]

  In the last Bundestag election had the FDP crossed the 5% threshold wouldn't that have led to a CDU-CSU/FDP coalition?

[rob in cal]

  David, I think its a case of the Overton window effect.

[rob in cal]

  Tender, do you have a link to the new immigration numbers?  I'd be interested in seeing where the bulk of non-asylum seekers are coming from, and whether that's also influencing the political debate.

[rob in cal]

   Would be amazing if CDU finishes 5th in the Berlin vote. Not likely, but possibly in some districts?

[rob in cal]

  I don't feel like going through each precinct level result, but I'm wondering what precinct is going to have the highest combined vote for left of center parties.  Looks like many precincts in Kreutzberg 1 saw SPD,Green,Linke votes alone hitting the low 80%, not counting votes for any other small left parties.

[rob in cal]

   Iratemoderate, this is one of my political dreams/fantasies , of left of center parties embracing a low immigration policy, like Robert Fico in Slovakia. It would be fascinating to see how this would work out in reality in Germany.  Would there be enough of an electorate to back such a party in significant numbers?
  That's why I'd like to see a FPO-SPO coalition in Austria, to keep the FPO from going too far in a neo-liberal direction, and bring the SPO back to representing a pro Austrian working class attitude by going for immigration restriction.  One can dream this at any rate.

[rob in cal]

   The party breakdown by whether immigration is advantageous or not is interesting. I'm surprised that so many Green voters viewed it negatively, and would have thought that Linke supporters would have been a little less supportive as well.

[rob in cal]

    If somehow the CSU didn't get a majority in the next Bayern Landtag election and the results were similar to the current poll (say the Linke and FDP got seats in this scenario), would we see a CSU FDP coalition or would a lot of the CSU want to try a CSU AFD coalition?

[rob in cal]

  So the German constitutional court rules against banning the NPD, as they are not a significant enough political threat to deserve banning. I would think this will hurt the AFD a little bit politically, as without the NPD on the ballot the AFD would likely have won the votes of a big chunk of potential NPD voters, not that we are talking about a big voter pool.

[rob in cal]

   Klartext, agreed about problems with thresholds.  But, in the last federal election it was kind of like a perfect storm, where both FDP and AFD came so close to crossing the 5% line but just missed it.  Wonder how many right leaning voters who supported another party in that election regretted not helping the AFD over the finish line.

[rob in cal]

    Do we have any data breaking down the electorate by whether they are public employees or not?  It would be interesting to see among the white collar electorate whether the CDU does much better among non-public employees and the Greens,Linke, SPD much better among public employees.

[rob in cal]

   How likely is it that the Green vote will go down below 4% as Green voters fear just missing the 5% threshold and go en masse to SPD and Die Linke?

[rob in cal]

    If the ZDF numbers are accurate, if you were a CDU supporter who would like to see the Grosser Coalition back in office, it might make sense to vote FDP to ensure they pass the 5% threshold, which would make a SPD-Linke majority a bit less likely.

[rob in cal]

  Probably a lot of potential FDP voters went with CDU, and also somewhat among Green voters going to Linke and SPD

[rob in cal]

  Anything causing the Schultztrain derailment, or just the honeymoon period wearing off?

[rob in cal]

  If the Bundestag election leads to a CDU/CSU FDP near majority of seats, with RRG further behind in seats and a AFD delegation holding the rest of the seats, would a minority CDU/CSU FDP government be a possibility?

[rob in cal]

  That FDP number for NRW is pretty strong. Any reasons for its strength there? Also, looks like whether Die Linke makes it over the 5% threshold might have a big impact on the next government.

[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.

[rob in cal]

   If just a tiny bit of the SPD or Green electorate had voted for Die Linke and thus put them over the 5% threshold there would be no possibility of a CDU/FDP majority. 

[rob in cal]

  That first poster is taken from the Polish government playbook, in that Szydlo's government has rejected taking in non-European migrants, and instead have passed the Family 500+ law with the direct idea of raising the Polish population through a higher birth rate rather than through immigration.