Polish Politics and Elections

[M0096]

Kolodziejczak was promised position of Minister or Viceminister (in case minister is member of PSL) of Agriculture in KO-led government.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

I am already sick of that electoral campaign.

[President Johnson]

PiS reaches a new low with this spot with their primitive anti-German sentiment.

https://twitter.com/WashTimesLocal/status/1701273812048695511

https://twitter.com/pisorgpl/status/1701098261199691789

[Storr]

This has the potential to turn into a major issue:

https://twitter.com/POLITICOEurope/status/1701302745649611121?s=20

“Do you know who in Europe brings in the most Muslim immigrants? The government that frightens with them. The PiS government,” - Tusk

https://twitter.com/donaldtusk/status/1699421164253118517?s=20

[jaichind]

I know the threshold for seats is 5% for a party and 8% for an alliance.  For the purposes of this rule are the Left, Third Way, and Confederation considered parties or alliances? I assume they are considered alliances.

[M0096]

Third Way is alliance but Confederation and Left are parties.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

I know the threshold for seats is 5% for a party and 8% for an alliance.  For the purposes of this rule are the Left, Third Way, and Confederation considered parties or alliances? I assume they are considered alliances.

It depends on the type of electoral committee they decide to participate as. They do not get that status automatically, they have to apply for it. There is whole procedure regulated by law, which specifies rules based on which various types of entities can participate in the elections. Types of those are regulated by the Electoral Code, and there are three of them:

1) komitet wyborczy partii politycznej (KW) - electoral committee (of a party)
2) koalicyjny komitet wyborczy (KKW) - electoral committee of a coalition
3) komitet wyborczy wyborców (KWW) - electoral committee of voters (note: this type of electoral committee is only one allowed to participate in presidential elections)

And now the fun begins, as technically coalitions can participate in the elections as an "ordinary" electoral committee of a party to have lower electoral threshold (The Left is basically doing that second elections in a row due to a trauma of 2015 elections). The main issue in that is that coalitions electoral committee are allowed to split the money from the state which every party after reaching 3% of votes for a party, and 6% for a coalition (so threshold minus 2pp). So, if coalition of the parties decide to run as one of them, and the rest is merely on the electoral lists only the party which is registering the committee will get the money, and this is only their good will if they will somehow, semi-legally share the money with them.  

As for these elections:

1) The Left which is in practice coalition of few parties (post-communist New Left, diem25ist Lewica Razem, and the minors: Unia Pracy, Polska Partia Socjalistyczna [for which I wasted too much of my life by the way] and Socjaldemokracja Polska) participate as party committee of the New Left. Razem basically were subdued by them, so I think in one or two parialemntary terms they will do the same as PvdA/GL, but on a smaller scale (Razem as for now basically has no structures, money etc.).

2) but also PiS decided to participate (again) in the elections as party electoral committee even while they are practically participating as coalition of Zjednoczona Prawica, with their satellites which they are governing Poland - obviously to keep them in check to do not give them too much independence, as their main and the most problematic ally, Suwerenna Polska (formerly Solidarna Polska) led by Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro, was founded in 2011, after unsuccessful attempt to "reform PiS" (probably sideline Kaczyński) by the Ziobro himself.

3) as for the Byzantine-like and overly complicated structure of what Confederation is I would probably have to hire Khan Academy to explain that, because I am not sure if I am even properly understanding this dumbery of a structure. Basically, the closest thing to which I think we can compare Confederation is Dutch PVV. Main difference that there are multiple Geerts, which represents few other political parties, which are members of Confederation (but mainly the two of them - whatever at the moment is name of the Korwin party and nationalists from Ruch Narodowy) but generally do not have members but the leaders and their closest allies. There is so called Rada Liderów Konfederacji (Council of Leaders) who decides about stuff in Confederation. They claim that Konfederacja is "federational" political party, but on paper they are just ordinary political party (Polish law do not consider anything like as federational political party as a real thing) and they participate in the elections as party electoral committee (of a Confederation). But in reality they are more of a coalition than PiS or The Left even if formally not a one in the elections.

4) PO are again, as in the 2019 lenient and decided to participate as a coalition with their satellites so the satellites can get some pocket money to buy themselves something on their own, snacks and soft drinks or whatever.

5) Third Way is coalition, but there is also a twist - although they are technically a coalition of a two parties and they are splitting money 50:50, there are also other parties which have their representatives on their electoral lists.

[M0096]

The election advisor "Latarnik Wyborczy" has started today. Here is link to that questionnaire latarnikwyborczy.pl/ankieta.

[President Johnson]

This is getting ridiculous. I hope PiS loses the election, it's one of the worst governments in Europe.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1706312489967726678

Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau accused Germany of seeking to interfere in his country's internal affairs after comments from Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The German leader said Warsaw had questions to answer over allegations that Polish consulates in Africa and Asia sold fast-tracked temporary work visas for thousands of dollars each to migrants.


With migration a central campaign theme ahead of Poland's closely contested mid-October elections, Rau accused Scholz of overstepping a boundary with his clarification request.

"The competence of the German Chancellor clearly does not concern the ongoing proceedings in Poland," the foreign minister wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

[...]

[Storr]

This is getting ridiculous. I hope PiS loses the election, it's one of the worst governments in Europe.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1706312489967726678

Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau accused Germany of seeking to interfere in his country's internal affairs after comments from Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The German leader said Warsaw had questions to answer over allegations that Polish consulates in Africa and Asia sold fast-tracked temporary work visas for thousands of dollars each to migrants.


With migration a central campaign theme ahead of Poland's closely contested mid-October elections, Rau accused Scholz of overstepping a boundary with his clarification request.

"The competence of the German Chancellor clearly does not concern the ongoing proceedings in Poland," the foreign minister wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

[...]

"How dare a country we share a 467 km long open/free movement border with question our government giving out visas to foreign non-EU nationals in exchange for bribes!"

The PiS strategy of whipping up anti-German sentiment does seem to strike a chord among a significant number of the Polish people (or at least the older generations), but the extent to which the party is taking it is ridiculous.

[xelas81]

Looks like recent visa controversy hasn't shown significant change in polling.
I would have (incorrectly) predicted Konfederacja gaining voters from PiS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2023_Polish_parliamentary_election

[Mike88]

Around 1 million people marched this Sunday against the government in Warsaw. The march was headed by the main opposition coalition, KO:

Polling suggests that the PiS coalition is holding on to a comfortable lead, but taking into account that polls around the world are failing over and over again, these poll numbers should be taken with a massive grain of salt.

[Oryxslayer]

Polling suggests that the PiS coalition is holding on to a comfortable lead, but taking into account that polls around the world are failing over and over again, these poll numbers should be taken with a massive grain of salt.

This is not exactly directed at you, but more to the whole thread since things are quiet, but this is a good launching point.

It's two weeks until the election.

Polling is fairly stable right now at something like 37% PiS+, 30% PO+, 10% Lewica, 10% Third Way, and 10% Confederation.

In theory this looks a lot like the 2019 breakdown just with worse numbers for PiS and better numbers for everyone else. And there wasn't that much of a D'Hondt advantage to PiS then, with most of their seats above the hypothetical fully proportional percentage coming from Confederation. Is this just cause everyone got a decent share of the vote, Polish D'Hondt constituencies are allocated fairly equally (compared to say Spain), or cause PiS voters are hyper-concentrated? And with PiS down, and therefore not likely to finish first in so many constituencies, would they still be the sole beneficiary from allocations? And what about Confederation, would their distribution be fairly uniform or would it be more felt in the PiS stronghold states? (potentially either cause there is more voters to lose there or because its easier to pull away proportional seats in theory if a party is starting from a very high mark)

Essentially, it looks likely from my observers perspective that PiS+ will lose the majority, the three 'willing to cooperate' lists in the opposition probably won't have an alternative majority, but how close should one expect them to be? If this is a incorrect reading of the public polls, please explain.


And then there's the (much less powerful) Senate. Is it right to say the opposition on current polling is clearly favored there? PO has seemingly always done better there than in the Sejm, and in recent times they run a joint slate with the smaller opposition parties. Which would make it PO++ vs PiS+ vs Confederation in most seats, on a map where Duda failed to carry a majority of the seats in 2020.

[Pericles]

Polling is fairly stable right now at something like 37% PiS+, 30% PO+, 10% Lewica, 10% Third Way, and 10% Confederation.

I have a very basic knowledge of Polish politics, so what do those numbers mean as an outcome? Is that a narrow lead for a potential opposition coalition?

[M0096]

My Senate prediction:
Safe Senate Pact (KO, PSL, PL2050, Left): 36 seats
Likely Senate Pact: 8 seats
Lean Senate Pact: 11 seats
Toss-up: 5 seats
Lean PiS: 5 seats
Likely PiS: 6 seats
Safe PiS: 29 seats

Districts:
Safe Senate Pact: 4 (Wałbrzych), 7 (Wrocław I), 8 (Wrocław II), 9 (Bydgoszcz), 11 (Toruń), 20 (Zielona Góra), 21 (Gorzów Wielkopolski), 22 (Nowa Sól), 23 (Łódź I), 24 (Łódź II), 32 (Kraków I), 33 (Kraków II), 41 (Pruszków), 42 (Warszawa I), 43 (Warszawa II), 44 (Warszawa III), 45 (Warszawa IV), 52 (Opole), 62 (Słupsk), 64 (Gdynia), 65 (Gdańsk), 66 (Tczew), 67 (Malbork), 70 (Gliwice), 71 (Zabrze), 77 (Sosnowiec), 80 (Katowice), 84 (Elbląg), 88 (Piła), 89 (Szamotuły), 90 (Swarzędz), 91 (Poznań), 94 (Leszno), 97 (Szczecin), 98 (Stargard), 99 (Kołobrzeg)
Likely Senate Pact: 6 (Oleśnica), 10 (Inowrocław), 53 (Kędzierzyn-Koźle), 69 (Częstochowa), 74 (Ruda Śląska) (flip), 76 (Dąbrowa Górnicza), 78 (Bielsko-Biała), 100 (Koszalin)
Lean Senate Pact: 2 (Jelenia Góra) (flip), 5 (Dzierżoniów) (flip), 12 (Grudziądz), 16 (Lublin), 40 (Legionowo), 75 (Tychy), 85 (Ostróda) (flip), 87 (Ełk) (flip), 92 (Gniezno), 95 (Ostrów Wielkopolski), 96 (Kalisz)
Toss-up: 1 (Bolesławiec), 51 (Nysa), 63 (Chojnice), 72 (Jastrzębie-Zdrój), 86 (Olsztyn)
Lean PiS: 3 (Legnica), 13 (Włocławek), 26 (Zgierz), 38 (Płock), 73 (Rybnik)
Likely PiS: 18 (Chełm), 39 (Ciechanów), 60 (Białystok), 68 (Myszków), 79 (Cieszyn), 93 (Konin)
Safe PiS: 14 (Puławy), 15 (Kraśnik), 17 (Biała Podlaska), 19 (Zamość), 25 (Kutno), 27 (Zduńska Wola), 28 (Piotrków Trybunalski), 29 (Tomaszów Mazowiecki), 30 (Oświęcim), 31 (Olkusz), 34 (Bochnia), 35 (Tarnów), 36 (Nowy Targ), 37 (Nowy Sącz), 46 (Ostrołęka), 47 (Mińsk Mazowiecki), 48 (Siedlce), 49 (Kozienice), 50 (Radom), 54 (Stalowa Wola), 55 (Mielec), 56 (Rzeszów), 57 (Krosno), 58 (Przemyśl), 59 (Suwałki), 61 (Bielsk Podlaski), 81 (Busko-Zdrój), 82 (Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski), 83 (Kielce)

Senate will be very likely hold by opposition. Senate Pact is going to expand their majority by a few seats.

[M0096]

Polling is fairly stable right now at something like 37% PiS+, 30% PO+, 10% Lewica, 10% Third Way, and 10% Confederation.

I have a very basic knowledge of Polish politics, so what do those numbers mean as an outcome? Is that a narrow lead for a potential opposition coalition?

"Democratic Opposition" (KO, Third Way and Left) and PiS+Konfederacja are tied in number of seats in Sejm in majority of polls. "Democratic Opposition" parties excluded coalition with PiS. Left also can't be in coalition with Konfederacja. Coalition between KO or Third Way with Konfederacja is also very unlikely. I also can't image consensus between PiS and Konfederacja in economic issues.

[Oryxslayer]

The election is in one week, and again I am surprised by the lack of discussion. This is compounded by the fact that polls have seemingly tightened in the final days of the campaign.

So Poland uses D'Hondt allocation of seats across 41 constituencies. D'Hondt as a system has a reputation for rewarding the largest parties and taking these seats from the smaller parties, at least when compared to other PR-style systems. Nowhere is this most apparent than in Spain, with the majority of constituencies having 5 or less seats, de facto meaning that small parties often get zero seats in these districts and its not their fault.

However, the 41 Polish constituencies have awarded their seats roughly equivalently. The constituency nature of this is important, cause some regions have clear comparatively shrunk since allocation, and some grown. There are a few with less, and a few with more, but almost every constancy falls between 9 and 14 seats. What this means is that it isn't too hard for a small party to obtain representation in every constituency, as long their vote totals are large enough.

Mathematically, this benchmark is somewhere around the 10% line nationally. This can be calculated using the 2019 votes shares in the constituencies and applying swings based on polling, be it weighted or simple uniform. Now this isn't uniform, some constituencies will provide 0 seats, others 2, but it averages out to around 41.

This has two important effects. The first is that the small parties aren't getting harmed to much by the system. Winning 41 seats with 10% of the vote is very close to the 46 under pure proportional. Which means there are fewer 'bonus' seats avoidable to be awarded to the big two. The second effect is that it de facto means that if polling is even close to accurate, PiS has lost an absolute majority. Confederation growing ~4% at the expense of PiS means they are getting allocated at least 30 PiS seats, putting the governing party far from the 50% line. But you would expect Confederation to eventually end up supporting a PiS government, so on it's own this has little impact.



This is where we now have to discuss the tightening polls. Now a number of them are seemingly from the selection of polls that in the past are better for the opposition, but even some more PiS friendly ones are showing tightening compared to past numbers. And none are really consistent where this tightening is going, some to PO+ (which would more efficiently lead to opposition gains), and some to Lewica and Third Way. If I had to throw out a guess, I would say this is the result of increasing temporal distance from the German dispute, leading to other issues regaining prominence. But the overall result is similar: there can legitimately be a PO led government with ~10% or higher for the the three smaller parties, and a 5% PiS lead or smaller over over PO+.

This basically works through the peculiarities of D'Hondt, and PiS's poor geographic voter distribution. The easiest way for a big party to potentially pick up a seat in D'Hondt is to finish first in a constituency. Obviously it will come down to how the smaller parties balance out, and how many seats are in a constituency, but eventually there will be a point where the largest party gets allocated a seat cause it is the largest. A 5% margin or less in theory is where PO+ starts finishing first in a lot of western constituencies, since PiS piles up the votes in eastern constituencies where seats are hard to change hands. Obviously this all depends upon how PiS loses votes, be that uniformly or more concentrated such as hypothetically outside of the southeast. Which is why it becomes more possible the tighter the two parties get, no matter if the tightening is caused by smaller party growth or a swing towards PO+.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

snip

I've been quite busy lately but I do hope to put up some posts about how I think the campaign has gone before election day. For whatever reason, it's always been quite hard to get Atlas people interested in Polish politics, so I rarely look in here.

Oryx, can I ask where you're getting your information on Polish electoral geography? Because it is certainly not the case that PiS has 'poor geographic voter distribution', in fact its distribution is so good that PO could narrowly win the popular vote and still come out with fewer seats. There are a few reasons for this.

First of all, the number of seats per constituency is fixed, so a vote in a constituency with lower turnout technically has greater weight than one in a constituency with higher one. Urban turnout is much higher, and cities favour the opposition. On top of that, votes from abroad all go into the Warsaw I constituency, but it doesn't get any extra seats to account for this, so voters in the capital end up a bit underrepresented.

The other reason is malapportionment - the last time the seat allocation was updated to account for population changes was 2011, and this artificially hands PiS a handful of extra seats.

[DavidB.]

I am highly interested in this election, but don't have much to add in terms of info and therefore don't tend to post here. But please do not take this silence as a lack of interest. I suspect there are many more posters in the same situation.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

My Senate prediction:
Safe Senate Pact (KO, PSL, PL2050, Left): 36 seats
Likely Senate Pact: 8 seats
Lean Senate Pact: 11 seats
Toss-up: 5 seats
Lean PiS: 5 seats
Likely PiS: 6 seats
Safe PiS: 29 seats

Districts:
Safe Senate Pact: 4 (Wałbrzych), 7 (Wrocław I), 8 (Wrocław II), 9 (Bydgoszcz), 11 (Toruń), 20 (Zielona Góra), 21 (Gorzów Wielkopolski), 22 (Nowa Sól), 23 (Łódź I), 24 (Łódź II), 32 (Kraków I), 33 (Kraków II), 41 (Pruszków), 42 (Warszawa I), 43 (Warszawa II), 44 (Warszawa III), 45 (Warszawa IV), 52 (Opole), 62 (Słupsk), 64 (Gdynia), 65 (Gdańsk), 66 (Tczew), 67 (Malbork), 70 (Gliwice), 71 (Zabrze), 77 (Sosnowiec), 80 (Katowice), 84 (Elbląg), 88 (Piła), 89 (Szamotuły), 90 (Swarzędz), 91 (Poznań), 94 (Leszno), 97 (Szczecin), 98 (Stargard), 99 (Kołobrzeg)
Likely Senate Pact: 6 (Oleśnica), 10 (Inowrocław), 53 (Kędzierzyn-Koźle), 69 (Częstochowa), 74 (Ruda Śląska) (flip), 76 (Dąbrowa Górnicza), 78 (Bielsko-Biała), 100 (Koszalin)
Lean Senate Pact: 2 (Jelenia Góra) (flip), 5 (Dzierżoniów) (flip), 12 (Grudziądz), 16 (Lublin), 40 (Legionowo), 75 (Tychy), 85 (Ostróda) (flip), 87 (Ełk) (flip), 92 (Gniezno), 95 (Ostrów Wielkopolski), 96 (Kalisz)
Toss-up: 1 (Bolesławiec), 51 (Nysa), 63 (Chojnice), 72 (Jastrzębie-Zdrój), 86 (Olsztyn)
Lean PiS: 3 (Legnica), 13 (Włocławek), 26 (Zgierz), 38 (Płock), 73 (Rybnik)
Likely PiS: 18 (Chełm), 39 (Ciechanów), 60 (Białystok), 68 (Myszków), 79 (Cieszyn), 93 (Konin)
Safe PiS: 14 (Puławy), 15 (Kraśnik), 17 (Biała Podlaska), 19 (Zamość), 25 (Kutno), 27 (Zduńska Wola), 28 (Piotrków Trybunalski), 29 (Tomaszów Mazowiecki), 30 (Oświęcim), 31 (Olkusz), 34 (Bochnia), 35 (Tarnów), 36 (Nowy Targ), 37 (Nowy Sącz), 46 (Ostrołęka), 47 (Mińsk Mazowiecki), 48 (Siedlce), 49 (Kozienice), 50 (Radom), 54 (Stalowa Wola), 55 (Mielec), 56 (Rzeszów), 57 (Krosno), 58 (Przemyśl), 59 (Suwałki), 61 (Bielsk Podlaski), 81 (Busko-Zdrój), 82 (Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski), 83 (Kielce)

Senate will be very likely hold by opposition. Senate Pact is going to expand their majority by a few seats.

This is a very good rundown and thank you for writing it, but I disagree with a few of your calls

I would put 1 (Bolesławiec) in Lean PiS - Piotr Roman probably took some PiS votes in 2019 and Witkowski is a total liability of a candidate IMO - parachuted in from Poznań, has a long track record of losing easy elections, and is involved in shady stuff. On the other hand, 13 (Włocławek) and 26 (Zgierz) are probably more toss-ups, both were very close in 2019 and I think the minor candidates there would probably have taken more votes from the opposition than from PiS.

I personally wouldn't dare predict 16 (Lublin), the opposition candidate there is a parachute from Warsaw, while the PiS candidate is better than last time (I heard Michałkiewicz got exiled to the Senate by the Dear Leader for sabotaging the local election campaign out of jealousy). And the minor candidates there will probably be fishing in both ponds.

18 (Chełm) and 39 (Ciechanów) are a mystery to me, but I think the PiS defectors getting a free run in those seats have enough of a brand that they might have a shot. 83 (Kielce) might also be more Likely PiS, Kielce is odd and this might be the rare case where an elderly SLD notable being the opposition candidate could actually help.

Finally, PiS has stood down and is backing local independent candidates in 21 (Gorzów Wielkopolski) and 71 (Zabrze), while the opposition is doing the same in 47 (Mińsk Mazowiecki). Probably won't matter, but worth keeping an eye on anyway.

[M0096]

1 (Bolesławiec): I don't think Kamil Barczyk can replicate result of five-term incumbent mayor of the biggest city in the district (Piotr Roman). Bezpartyjni Samorządowcy are coalition member in Voidodeship Sejmik with PiS and I predict much stronger tactical voting this time. I agree that Witkowski is carpetbagger and very weak candidate, but this is Komorowski (2015), Trzaskowski (2019) district. I think Ślusarz and Witkowski are practically tied.

13 (Włocławek): Zbonikowski (who placed 3rd) was discredited PiS member, who was deselected by Kaczyński from PiS Sejm list, so he decided to ran for Senate as Independent. I doubt that no-name leftist could flip that district, but this race will end in low single digits. Wenderlich was a least one of best recognizable politicans in SLD, who was deputy Marshall of Sejm.

16 (Lublin): This seat is trending very fast to opposition, so I think that even carpetbagger should narrowly win there.

I agree that 18 and 39 are weird, because PiS defectors are efficiently opposition candidates. Under normal circumstances PiS should win there easily but both Grzywaczewska and Bieńkowski are no-namers + third candidates are right-wingers.

72 (Jastrzębie-Zdrój) is also interesting, because PiS deselected incumbent Ewa Gawęda, who decided to run as Bezpartyjni Samorządowcy. After Gawęda registered at the last minute, they forced their nominee to withdraw. I think this drama could make this PiS-leaning, blue collar district, as the most competitive race in Senate election.

83 (Kielce) won't be competitive. Suchańska is too strong and will very easily split opposition vote.

[Oryxslayer]

snip

I've been quite busy lately but I do hope to put up some posts about how I think the campaign has gone before election day. For whatever reason, it's always been quite hard to get Atlas people interested in Polish politics, so I rarely look in here.

Oryx, can I ask where you're getting your information on Polish electoral geography? Because it is certainly not the case that PiS has 'poor geographic voter distribution', in fact its distribution is so good that PO could narrowly win the popular vote and still come out with fewer seats. There are a few reasons for this.

First of all, the number of seats per constituency is fixed, so a vote in a constituency with lower turnout technically has greater weight than one in a constituency with higher one. Urban turnout is much higher, and cities favour the opposition. On top of that, votes from abroad all go into the Warsaw I constituency, but it doesn't get any extra seats to account for this, so voters in the capital end up a bit underrepresented.

The other reason is malapportionment - the last time the seat allocation was updated to account for population changes was 2011, and this artificially hands PiS a handful of extra seats.

I think we are approaching it from two different angles. You are looking at it from the perspective of the structural barriers, which do exist. I am looking at it from the perspective of the electoral map. So you will say the opposition winning 50.1% and not winning a majority gives PiS an advantage. I say, given the nature of the opposition's division, the opposition winning 51% and getting a majority is a advantage since PiS are going to come in first in D'Hondt.

For comparison, lets see Spain. The parties that just tried to put Feijoo in power won 46.1% of the vote, to the parties that would put Sanchez into office (everyone else with seats excluding Junts) winning 49%. And The right got 1 more seat cause the PP came in first.

The simple truth is that PiS votes are concentrated in the East, most especially the southeast. In a virtually tied race, lets say the 2020 presidential election, PO wins 22/41 Sejm districts containing 262/460 seats, obvious proportionality makes this complicated, but we'll get to that in a moment. And that's a race they lose 51-49.

PO also won a majority of senate seats in that race. Which is a good hint that the mallaportionment in the Sejm isn't that bad from a partisan perspective. The cities have grown, but so has the religious Southeast. The rural areas have Shrunk, but both the opposition and PiS need rural seats.

In a straight PO vs PiS race, PO wins  more seats with smaller margins, whereas PiS pile on the votes in safe areas.

But that is all two-party stuff. This is not a two party election. I think you are looking just at PO+ versus PiS+, whereas I am looking at it as PiS+ (and Confed kinda) verses PO+, Lewica, and the Third way alliances. PO+ is not going to win the popular vote and I don't think we should expect them to unless they show signs of it.

 That is where the majority of the PiS Sejm advantage comes from that you are saying exists. As I said above, under D'Hondt the big parties get a boost at the expense of others. In 2019, PiS basically swept first place everywhere so they got an absurd bonus. But a closer race sees PiS win less and less, districts and therefore get less.

Here's basically how that works, in a hypothetical pool of 100 votes, and a district with 10 seats. 45 go for party A, 43 for party B, and 12 for party C. This gives 5 seats to party A, 4 to party B, and 1 to party C. Party A won a seat off only 2 votes, whereas every other seat takes at least 8 to get apportioned.

Here's another scenario of 100 voters and 10 seats. Only this time it goes 65-15-15-5 for four parties. 8 seats go to the first party, and one to the second and third. There are obviously a lot of wasted votes for party 2 and 3. But now lets bring that to 60-15-15-10. Now its 7-1-1-1. This is a reduction of the math in the PiS strongholds. PiS mathematically can't get any more seats easily, and driving up base turnout has little to no reward. The other opposition parties are wasting votes. But the smaller, more testimonial parties can make a much more enthusiastic appeal to a smaller section of the electorate only somewhat satisfied by the big two. Very much the case for Confederation. This allows them to with less comparative resources pull away a seat that PiS had to expend much more effort to win.

So yes, do I think the opposition needs more than 50% for a majority? Yes. And the polls that do suggest they could get one tend towards 51-52%. How much above that line though is fairly small for D'Hondt when you are losing first place by several percent points. That line can also come down if PiS losses are not uniform, and their bedrock voters in the eastern constituencies, where PO+ has a harder time pulling away seats, remain the firmest. It also comes down if Third Way get a bit above 10%, cause they seemingly have a temporarily efficient coalition. For only 1 or more 2%, they temporarily outperform the perfectly proportional hypothetical seat allotment.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1711358435051065710?t=3VpV0vc3oE9fZxeXIP...

This is a good public presentation of the math that I have done in the background. A PiS leaning outlet, compared to the averages, gives us a 6% lead over PO and only 9% for all the smaller tickets. But this is only a 8 seat majority for PiS+Confed. PO+ and/or the minor parties - including Confed here since they take for PiS - doing a little bit better rapidly drops that total. PiS falls below PO+ in more Western constituencies, transferring D'Hondt 'bonus' seats  awarded in allocation to the opposition. The minor parties doing a bit better gives them representation approximatly everywhere, including in the places PO+ can't make a targeted appeal towards. That's why I say 35-30-10-10-10 is the divider, with PiS or PO governments becoming increasingly likely depending on the deviations from that line and in what direction.

A more divided constellation of parties getting a majority in D'Hondt is hard when they are also losing first place,  and yet somehow the PiS voter concentration makes it possible.

[jaichind]

Assuming PiS + Confederation gets a majority how likely is it that these two parties form a post-election coalition?

[DavidB.]

Assuming PiS + Confederation gets a majority how likely is it that these two parties form a post-election coalition?

Parts of Konfederacja are incredibly hostile to the idea. The parties are very far apart on economic issues (Kon almost completely libertarian, PiS very interventionist and redistributionist), which matters very much to parts of the Kon base, but also culturally (which is partly generational: PiS has a rather old voter base, Kon is more popular with young people).

When it seemed that PiS itself would almost reach a majority but would just need a few Kon seats, perhaps it could have been possible to strike some deal with parts of Kon while leaving the more hostile parts out. But if all of Kon is needed, things might actually get tough.

On the other hand, there will be more pressure on Kon to give in as the alternative would be a repeat election - in which they could be punished - or ceding the keys to the left, which they also don't want.

I do wonder what caused Kon's decline in the polls. They were at 15% this summer. Do the Polish posters know more about this?