German Elections & Politics

[Donnie]

INSA

For German standards this poll should be seen as an earthquake...

[Beezer]

Forsa now has the AfD tieing their all-time high as well.

CDU 37 (-1)
SPD 23
Greens 10
FDP 5
Left 9 (-1)
AfD 10 (+1)

http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/forsa.htm

The AfD has also overtaken both the Greens and left in this poll of polls: http://pollytix.de/wahltrend

CDU 36.4
SPD 23.2
AfD 10.3
Greens 10.0
Left 9.2
FDP 5.2

In such a scenario a CDU-Green coalition would be just shy of a majority.

[Beezer]

INSA Baden-Württemberg poll (change since last INSA poll from October):

CDU 35 % (-5)
GRÜ 29 % (+5)
SPD 13 % (-3)
AfD 11,5 % (+3.5)
FDP 6,5 % (+1.5)
Left ?

http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/baden-wuerttemberg.htm

Might not even be enough for a classic grand coalition.

[tpfkaw]

INSA

First poll showing a result where if the CSU refused to join, a grand coalition potentially wouldn't have a majority.

[palandio]

INSA Baden-Württemberg poll (change since last INSA poll from October):

CDU 35 % (-5)
GRÜ 29 % (+5)
SPD 13 % (-3)
AfD 11,5 % (+3.5)
FDP 6,5 % (+1.5)
Left 2.5% (-2.5) (fixed that for you, hope you won't mind)

http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/baden-wuerttemberg.htm

Might not even be enough for a classic grand coalition.

A "grand coalition" with the SPD at ca. 13% and in third (or maybe even fourth) place sounds strange. I would rather call it black-red. Black-green would be the real grand coalition.

[Sozialliberal]

First poll showing a result where if the CSU refused to join, a grand coalition potentially wouldn't have a majority.

I don't think that will happen, though. The CSU is like a dog that barks but doesn't bite.

There won't be a state election in Hesse anytime soon, but this poll struck me because I believe it's the first time that a poll suggests that the AfD is the third party in a state of former West Germany.

State election poll for Hesse (current government: CDU + Greens):
34 %, CDU
26 %, SPD
12 %, AfD
11%, Greens
8 %, The Left
5 %, FDP
4 %, other parties
(1,000 people were polled by Infratest dimap between 12th and 16th January 2016.)


The poll was part of a survey. I think the following part is interesting, too. The questions asked were: "What do you think is the most important political problem in Hesse that needs to be prioritized? What is the second most important?" The questions were open-ended. All responses were subsumed under categories. The results are:

70 %; refugee crisis, foreigners
23 %; education, school, job training
9 %; unemployment, job market
8 %; crime, violence
7 %; economic situation
6 %; social injustice
5 %; family policy, day nursery places
5 %; transport
4 %; budget, regional state debt
4 %; housing

[Tender Branson]

There won't be a state election in Hesse anytime soon, but this poll struck me because I believe it's the first time that a poll suggests that the AfD is the third party in a state of former West Germany.

There's actually a state in which the AfD might soon be 2nd: Hamburg.

New Trend Research/Radio Hamburg poll:

37% SPD (-9)
14% CDU (-2)
13% AfD (+7)
13% Greens (+1)
10% Left (+1)
  8% FDP (+1)
  5% Others (+1)

http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/hamburg.htm

[Tender Branson]

Also, a new ZDF poll for BW confirms yesterday's INSA poll:

[Tender Branson]

The SWR and the MDR (the main state TV stations in Baden-Württemberg, Rheinland-Pfalz and Sachsen-Anhalt) have refused to let the AfD participate in the TV debates for the March 13 state elections.

This can only help the AfD because ignoring and censoring a party won't go anywhere.

[Beezer]

Exactly. It could actually be a blessing in disguise since I don't know how well AfD-candidates would handle a gang assault in one of those tv debates. So they won't be present but will be present seeing as I'm sure the broadcasters will address the issue during the debates. Win/win for the AfD and an additional layer of support for their "the press does the bidding of the mainstream parties" argument.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The SWR and the MDR (the main state TV stations in Baden-Württemberg, Rheinland-Pfalz and Sachsen-Anhalt) have refused to let the AfD participate in the TV debates for the March 13 state elections.

This can only help the AfD because ignoring and censoring a party won't go anywhere.

FDP and Left Party weren't allowed to that debates either.

Just saying... everyone seems to obsess themselves over the AfD like the other two parties don't even exist anymore.

[rob in cal]

   This would make a second place finish for the AFD in Saxony Anhalt that much more hilarious.

[DavidB.]

Tell me again, why did Germany oppose the new Polish media law? Something related to partisanship, right?

But yeah, it's admittedly somewhat of a different story if Die Linke is excluded as well. Why is that? A debate with only CDU, SPD and the Greens is weird.

[Zanas]

Tell me again, why did Germany oppose the new Polish media law? Something related to partisanship, right?

But yeah, it's admittedly somewhat of a different story if Die Linke is excluded as well. Why is that? A debate with only CDU, SPD and the Greens is weird.

You know "serious-business" and that sort of things. Which FDP is now clearly excluded from, happily enough.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Tell me again, why did Germany oppose the new Polish media law? Something related to partisanship, right?

I guess its just part of tendency - Germany lost Eastern ally/goon with PO lose. They just support PO/.nowoczesna/whatever in their struggle against PiS. Although I far as I remember they most aggressive were German politicians but not from the Merkel cabinet but those from EU structures.

[DavidB.]

Tell me again, why did Germany oppose the new Polish media law? Something related to partisanship, right?

But yeah, it's admittedly somewhat of a different story if Die Linke is excluded as well. Why is that? A debate with only CDU, SPD and the Greens is weird.

You know "serious-business" and that sort of things. Which FDP is now clearly excluded from, happily enough.

Yeah, I definitely understand why the FDP is excluded (and I'm as happy about that as you), but excluding Die Linke and AfD doesn't seem to make sense.

[Beezer]

ZDF poll confirms AfD's strong position in Rhineland-Palatinate (compared to previous FGW/ZDF poll in early November)

CDU 38 % (-3)
SPD 31 % (+1)
AfD 9 % (+3)
GRÜ 7 % (-1)
FDP 5 % (+1)
LIN 5 % (0)

[Beezer]

Bild headline: Will Merkel soon be forced out of office?



I'd say unthinkable headline a couple of weeks ago.

[palandio]

Numbers from the new federal Emnid poll:
CDU/CSU 40% among women, 32% among men (more extreme than usually, but not too far from normal, old women have been the strongest CDU/CSU group by far for years)
SPD 30% among women, 20% among men (new, in the past the German social democrats have had a relatively even support, often being slightly stronger with men)
AfD 2% among women, 17% among men (LOL, the most extreme gender balance I've ever seen, not even the FPÖ comes close...)

I didn't find numbers for the other parties, but they should add up to ca. 28% among women and ca. 31% among men. Probably the Greens are much stronger with women, while FDP, small parties and the Left should be stronger among men.

In the past there was rarely an extreme gender divide in voting behaviour, in particular on the left-right axis. Yes, CDU/CSU and Greens were stronger among women and most other parties slightly stronger among men, but nothing like the extreme divide seen in some other countries or now in Germany.

[Beezer]

Complete data:


https://twitter.com/Wahlrecht_de/status/691302285067030528

[Oak Hills]

How is it possible for the AfD to have such low support among women while having such high support among men? That's very unusual.

[Tender Branson]

Latest poll from today (Unique Research, n=800) shows the gender gap among FPÖ-voters is small:

34% among men
27% among women

FPÖ-vote overall: 31%

...

By age:

16-29: 33%
30-49: 37%
50+:    25%

http://epaper.heute.at/#/documents/160125_HEU/4

[Beezer]

How is it possible for the AfD to have such low support among women while having such high support among men? That's very unusual.

I suppose some of it could be down to the margin of error? As others have pointed out, right-wing populist parties are traditionally male dominated parties (at least at the base). I know it might sound sexist but women just don't like parties that appear rash, potentially violent and somewhat inhumane.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

How is it possible for the AfD to have such low support among women while having such high support among men? That's very unusual.

Not really. Compare for example with Sweden Democrats in Sweden. The last poll that made a break-down by gender showed a 15% gap in support for the party.

[DavidB.]

I suppose some of it could be down to the margin of error? As others have pointed out, right-wing populist parties are traditionally male dominated parties (at least at the base).

I think this difference is significant, well beyond what the margin of error could explain. But yes, RRWPs are often understood to be Männerparteien, so AfD is by no means unusual in that regard. In "Gendering the vote for populist radical-right parties", Spierings and Zaslove found that there is indeed a gender gap in support for European RRWPs, but that the phenomenon is overemphasized in the sense that the same phenomenon occurs to mainstream right-wing parties, albeit (for obvious reasons) to a smaller extent. The breakdown of RRWPs' voters by gender tends to be somewhere around 60% men, 40% women, although the Dutch PVV is an exception to this, being closer to 50/50.

It doesn't surprise me that SD and AfD seem to stand out in this regard, because they operate in a political environment that is most hostile to RRWPs -- so one would expect these patterns to be more prevalent in Sweden and Germany.