🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[rob in cal]

  It would be interesting to see a split among the Greens between those who more interested in the environmental issues and those more interested in ongoing mass immigration (which by the way has got to have significant long term environmental impacts).  Maybe the Ecological Democrats could join up with the first group.

[rob in cal]

  I'd like to see the data on the skilled jobs profile of immigrants in Germany, but my guess is that those bringing a desired skill set are more likely to be coming from other EU countries, while those who came in the 2015 group are much less likely to fit that profile.

[rob in cal]

   I've read a few articles that the current government is proposing an immigration reform law that would streamline existing regulations to ease the entry of skilled workers into Germany. Whats the status of that right now, and how might it effect further support for the AFD vs CDU?

[rob in cal]

  I think the healthiest long term development might be for the CSU and more rightwing elements of the CDU to merge, to create a truly center right political formation.

[rob in cal]

  Well, one thing is for certain on March 6, its my birthday, and the prospect of a snap election would be a great birthday present.

[rob in cal]

  It would be intresting to see what would happen if the Greens went way over to the right on immigration and retained their other policies.  Would they be able to absorb lots of voters on the right, and still retain the bulk of their current voters?

[rob in cal]

  Urutzizu, this is a fascinating development and it totally makes sense.  As the parties of the left become more and more made up of wealthier voters, at a certain point they will attempt to represent their direct economic intrests, and if it can dovetail with an environmental agenda, and also maybe stick it to those unwashed, anti EU xenophopic types so much the better.
  In the US I think one issue where we see this happening might have been the tax cut/tax reform passed in 2017, where it was the Democrats who were actually defending their upper middle class and upper class constituents who saw a huge de facto tax increase in the form of the state and local tax deduction limitation. Dems actually opposed this part of the tax reform, though some of that opposition was probably also because it discourages new state and local taxes and gives wealthy voters a direct reason to oppose such taxes.

[rob in cal]

Urutzizu, very intresting analysis.  Concerning Seehofer, I'm wondering about the new legal immigration law. Doesn't that represent a move to the left in that it calls for more immigration, albeit legal and regulated, its still more immigration when all is said and done.

[rob in cal]

So what would a traffic light coalition look like in terms of policy on immigration, the EU, taxes etc, and would they try for any political structural change like reform of the 5% threshold, more direct democracy etc.  I wonder if some in the FDP especially would like to push a change in the 5% rule as so many of their state parties come just above or below that number, and lowering it on the federal level might lead to   change on the lower level?

I would think both the Greens and the FDP would support immigration expansion, for business reasons on the part of the FDP, and for humanitarian and general expansion of  multi culturalism reasons on the part of the Greens.

[rob in cal]

If the current polls hold, and the next election yields a 26-22-16-12-12-6 type scenario, would a black green coalition be the most likely outcome? Would the CDU prefer that over a Germany coalition? And if the votes were there, would the FDP prefer a Germany or a traffic light coalition? How do  FDP and SPD feel about a Germany coalition?

[rob in cal]

  The FDP might play a big role if their support level can keep up. Any sense of what either the party leadership and Bundestag faction and actual FDP voters feel about what type of coalition they should try for.  I would guess the typical FDP voter would rather have their party backing a Laschet type leader over a Baerbock.

[rob in cal]

So, if the CDU/CSU had managed to just barely pass SPD as the biggest vote/seat getter, would Jamaica be much more likely, even if they still had taken big losses?

[rob in cal]

Don't know if anyone has touched on this, but pre election polling was somewhat close in general to results, but most or all polls at the end were showing a red red green majority, some even a pretty big one like 48-44. So I suppose thats getting into the direction of moderate polling failure.

[rob in cal]

With a new poll showing AFD ahead of SPD, we have a polling situation where the two leading parties are opposition parties. Seems pretty unique.