🇩🇪 German state & local elections

[Pick Up the Phone]

Overview...

CDU: Some minor losses, but overall solid performance and better than mostly expected. This result will rather strengthen Laschet than weaken him and once again shows that CDU is the only "large party" remaining.

SPD: Ouch. Losing several of their strongholds and might get defeated in important cities (Düsseldorf...) in runoffs.

Greens: Good results in total, strengthening their position to be in 2nd spot in federal elections next year.

AfD: Gains on paper, but it should be noted that AfD didn't file candidates in many cities six years ago. Not great, not terrible, but really not overwhelming.

FDP: Very weak. They're governing in NRW and still lost in comparison to the terrible result of 2014. This election will make it even more questionable how long Christian Lindner will be leader after a likely underwhelming result next year.

Left: Weak. They lost (mostly in favor of Greens), I personally wonder whether the "radical" wings' presence in last week following the Navalny murder attempt could have hurt them. Not good sign for a possible reentrance into state parliament in 2022.

PARTEI: Gains overall, usual left protest vote.

VOLT: Remarkable result for a grassroots movement. They outperformed FDP in Cologne and might hurt both FDP and Greens as they are a progressive, liberal and pan-European party. Could see them gaining 1-2 % in next federal elections.

Agree.

There are two winners tonight: The Greens and Armin Laschet. The former got some strong results, especially in urban areas and have shown again that they are the future of the German center-left. The latter has avoided a loss which could have severely harmed his chances to become CDU leader. Now, NRW is pacified once again.

As I had remarked before, the SPD's result is weak but still better than expected. Fortunately, they did not lose enough voters to find themselves in third place. If this had happened... well...

I would also question if anything the LINKE did at the federal level was a factor today. Especially not this Navalny story which is of no interest to the average voter. The truth is that after the sacking of Wagenknecht (which was the correct decision), the LINKE has failed to (a) exercise any control over the political agenda and (b) give their young and urban voters a good reason why they should not switch to the Greens. The party has hardly anything to offer at the moment.

[Astatine]

Updated exit polling:

CDU 35.0 (-2.5)
SPD 23.8 (-7.6)
Greens 18.7 (+7.0)
FDP 5.5 (+0.
AfD 5.0 (+2.4)
Left 3.6 (-1.1)
Others 8.4 (+1.0)

I am actually glad to see the AfD being pushed to 5th place, hope they get a 4.x result. It really shows how asymmetrically Germany votes: While AfD is basically a "Volkspartei" in the East even on local level, they're hardly relevant in the West.

[Former President tack50]

I'm a member of a dead party Why can't we have something like En Marche?

If anything I'd argue the CDU is closer to that than the SPD?

[Keep Calm and ...]

Preliminary official result:

https://twitter.com/WDRaktuell/status/1305389039424385024

https://www.wahlergebnisse.nrw/kommunalwahlen/2020/index.shtml
https://karten.wahlergebnisse.nrw/
https://kwnrw20.wdr.de/kwnw20/

[CumbrianLefty]

I'm a member of a dead party Why can't we have something like En Marche?

If anything I'd argue the CDU is closer to that than the SPD?

Certainly not convinced that Germany "needs" a new centre-right neoliberal party tbh.

[Velasco]

I'm a member of a dead party Why can't we have something like En Marche?

If anything I'd argue the CDU is closer to that than the SPD?

Certainly not convinced that Germany "needs" a new centre-right neoliberal party tbh.

If you want to have something like En Marche, you'll have to find someone like Emmanuel Macron. Above everything, the French thing is a personality cult project. Do you have anyone in Germany who can play that role? Do you have a Bonapartist tradition?

I highly doubt it's feasible to replace the SPD with a social-liberal experiment resembling En Marche without Macron. Among other things, because the Greens are already appealing to an urban audience. On the other hand, the Greens have serious limitations among certain demographic groups and this possibly prevents they are going to replace the SPD some day. So I'd argue Germany needs a 'red-green' alliance vetween the traditional and the environmentalist left. The growth of the Greens needs to be complemented by the resilience of the traditional left, otherwise there's no alternative to the CDU/CSU

[Zinneke]

Yeah please don't touch Bonapartism with a barge pole Germany. I love your federal model, and the sooner France adopts a similar system of decentralisation the better (although these things take time - Hollande to his credit has laid the groundwork).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I mean the Greens holding down one wing of the target audience for the centre left and the SPD the other seems perfectly workable as a long-term strategy.

[Alcibiades]

The Greens have not only been able to appeal to the more alternative and bobo vote on the left, but also to many small-c conservative-inclined vote in the centre and even centre-right, suggesting they can compete better with the CDU than the SPD can hope to.

[Zinneke]

Yeah the Green results in the Ruhrpot are too strong for this to be merely dismissed as a bobo middle class vote. But then this is a low turnout election with local issues at play.

[palandio]

Stuttgart has a new mayor: Dr. Frank Nopper (CDU) will succeed Fritz Kuhn (Greens).

First round (November 8 )
Nopper (CDU) 31.8%
Kienzle (Greens) 17.2%
Schreier (center-left independent, SPD membership suspended) 15.0%
Rockenbauch (SÖS, left-wing anti-S21) 14.0%
Körner (SPD) 9.8%
Reutter (independent, civil servant in Stuttgart's business promotion) 4.4%
Ballweg (chief organizer of "Querdenken" protests against anti-COVID measures) 2.6%
Kaufmann (AfD) 2.2%
All others ca. 3%

Despite arriving in second place, Veronika Kienzle (Greens) retreated due to perceiving her result to be disappointing (by Green Stuttgart standards). Körner, Reutter and Kaufmann retreated as well.

Second round (November 29)
Nopper 42.3%
Schreier 36.9%
Rockenbauch 17.8%
Ballweg 1.2%
All others ca. 2%

Looks like a classical own goal by the left-of-center political spectrum. Yes, I know that the center-left doesn't own the vote of left-wingers; but in other Bundesländer where before the runoff all candidates except for the first and the second are excluded, Nopper would either have lost against Kienzle or won with >50%.

[pilskonzept]

Underwhelming result for the center-left, but that is essentially the fallout of the Stuttgart21 disaster.

Schreier essentially got his own first round voters plus Körner's and those of Kienzle's who did not defect to Rockenbauch. Given that he was a popular mayor of a Stuttgart suburb (Backnang), Nopper underperformed too.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

This election result caused a major earthquake in that region!!!

[pilskonzept]

This election result caused a major earthquake in that region!!!

Earthquakes are bad for bridges but not so much for tunnels, right?

[urutzizu]

Underwhelming result for the center-left, but that is essentially the fallout of the Stuttgart21 disaster.

I not sure really. I didn't really hear it mentioned much at all (I'm from Stuttgart), then again I didn't pay that much attention tbh. Stuttgart 21 seems basically forgotten for most people here from my Perspective.

I see a lot of People saying it's reflective of a general shift in the region (with Dieter Salomon losing in Freiburg for instance) against the Greens. I don't think it's necessarily incorrect, but it's Important to note that the Greens ran a almost uniquely terrible campaign this time round. Basically they went into the election certain that Fritz Kuhn was going to stand again and making no real contingency plans at all. And then Kuhn took them aback by not running, and they had to go on a frantic search to try and find someone/anyone, and got rejection after rejection by any viable candidate (Özdemir or Aras for instance). So they were forced to take Kienzle, who was really nobody's choice (at times it almost seemed like not even her own) and she came off as very out of touch imo. Personality wise more of a Claudia Roth type than Özdemir/Kretschmann, and this doesn't really fly in Stuttgart. I think that with a different Candidate the result would have been very different, but alas.
Should be a warning shot for whenever Kretschmann retires, though. I think the only person who has enough profile to succeed him is Özdemir, but he may have greater Ambitions in Berlin. If he doesn't want to, the Greens are probably going run into a lot of trouble.

[palandio]

The thing is that if you take the sum then the left-of-center result in the first round (and even the second round to some degree) was quite good. It's just that electoral arithmetics is more difficult than taking sums, particularly when one side of the political spectrum sinks into chaos and confusion.

I can't say if Kienzle and Claudia Roth are similar personality-wise. Culturally they're both non-mainstream in different ways. Roth (former manager of proto-punk band Ton Steine Scherben) is just very left-alternative in a shrill way. Kienzle seems to be the Steiner/Waldorf/Anthroposophic kind of weird and anthroposophia is originally not left-wing at all. You're right though that the Greens' extraordinary success in Baden-Württemberg was built to a large degree on offering candidates that are somehow culturally close to the mainstream. This probably explains Schreier's 15% in the first round, because given that the SPD is now a ~10% party and that Körner got ~10%, Schreier's votes were mostly not SPD votes but rather "generic left-of-center" votes that might have gone to a more culturally mainstream Green candidate in another situation.

One point that nobody mentioned so far is turnout: Turnout fell from last year's council election (57.5%) to 49.0% in the first round and 44.6% in the second round.

Which means that the convergence of left-of-center-votes on Schreier was even worse.

The interesting phenomenon that I do not yet understand is Rockenbauch. At the last council election Linke and SÖS combined arrived at 9.7% which means that there is a hard support base for a hard-left candidate. But in this election significantly more voters voted for Rockenbauch even in the first round and confirmed their vote in the second round knowing that Rockenbauch had no chance to win this and was basically a spoiler candidate. This could be residual grievance from S21 resulting in "I don't care if a CDU, SPD or Green candidate wins, they're all the same". Which still doesn't explain Rockenbauch's improvement over prior left-wing performances.

[rob in cal]

 So whats the deal the German runoff rules?  Can all 1st round candidates participate? Whats the point of having a runoff if there are still a whole bunch moving on to the 2nd round anyway?

[Astatine]

So whats the deal the German runoff rules?  Can all 1st round candidates participate? Whats the point of having a runoff if there are still a whole bunch moving on to the 2nd round anyway?

It depends on the states. In most states, just the two candidates with most votes advance to the runoff, with – as far as I know – Baden-Württemberg and Saxony being the sole exceptions.

This archaic runoff rule might be a relict from the Weimar Republic. Presidential elections had two rounds, and if no candidate received a majority in the first round, a runoff would take where a simple majority was required to be elected.
Back then, candidates who didn't run in the first round could even be replaced (that's how Hindenburg became President in 1925).

[Pick Up the Phone]

Underwhelming result for the center-left, but that is essentially the fallout of the Stuttgart21 disaster.

Should be a warning shot for whenever Kretschmann retires, though. I think the only person who has enough profile to succeed him is Özdemir, but he may have greater Ambitions in Berlin. If he doesn't want to, the Greens are probably going run into a lot of trouble.

Not sure if Özdemir has so many career options left. He spectacularly failed to become foreign minister when Lindner and Kubicki pulled out of the Jamaica coalition negotiations. Then he failed to replace Hofreiter as chairman of the parliamentary group. He may still harbor ambitions but so do many others in Berlin. And some of them may have broader support and therefore better chances to get a cabinet position in 2021. Especially when it comes to the high-profile jobs (i.e., not agriculture or transportation).

Running in Baden-Württemberg as Kretschmann’s successor seems like an elegant way out.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Underwhelming result for the center-left, but that is essentially the fallout of the Stuttgart21 disaster.

Should be a warning shot for whenever Kretschmann retires, though. I think the only person who has enough profile to succeed him is Özdemir, but he may have greater Ambitions in Berlin. If he doesn't want to, the Greens are probably going run into a lot of trouble.

Not sure if Özdemir has so many career options left. He spectacularly failed to become foreign minister when Lindner and Kubicki pulled out of the Jamaica coalition negotiations. Then he failed to replace Hofreiter as chairman of the parliamentary group. He may still harbor ambitions but so do many others in Berlin. And some of them may have broader support and therefore better chances to get a cabinet position in 2021. Especially when it comes to the high-profile jobs (i.e., not agriculture or transportation).

Running in Baden-Württemberg as Kretschmann’s successor seems like an elegant way out.

I'm pretty sure Tübingen Mayor Boris Palmer will succeed Kretschmann as MP.
He may be a very polarizing political figure, but his divisive policies are very popular among conservatives, plus he has been a guest on every possible talk show for over a decade now, thus having become well-known among the electorate.
He wanted to become the MP ten years ago anyway, and he was reported to be very affronted and enraged about the party establishment's decision to choose Kretschmann over him.

By the way, with Kuhn leaving office, there is no Green mayor of a city in Baden-Württemberg with >100,000 citizens ("Großstadt") left anymore.

[Pick Up the Phone]

Underwhelming result for the center-left, but that is essentially the fallout of the Stuttgart21 disaster.

Should be a warning shot for whenever Kretschmann retires, though. I think the only person who has enough profile to succeed him is Özdemir, but he may have greater Ambitions in Berlin. If he doesn't want to, the Greens are probably going run into a lot of trouble.

Not sure if Özdemir has so many career options left. He spectacularly failed to become foreign minister when Lindner and Kubicki pulled out of the Jamaica coalition negotiations. Then he failed to replace Hofreiter as chairman of the parliamentary group. He may still harbor ambitions but so do many others in Berlin. And some of them may have broader support and therefore better chances to get a cabinet position in 2021. Especially when it comes to the high-profile jobs (i.e., not agriculture or transportation).

Running in Baden-Württemberg as Kretschmann’s successor seems like an elegant way out.

I'm pretty sure Tübingen Mayor Boris Palmer will succeed Kretschmann as MP.
He may be a very polarizing political figure, but his divisive policies are very popular among conservatives, plus he has been a guest on every possible talk show for over a decade now, thus having become well-known among the electorate.
He wanted to become the MP ten years ago anyway, and he was reported to be very affronted and enraged about the party establishment's decision to choose Kretschmann over him.

By the way, with Kuhn leaving office, there is no Green mayor of a city in Baden-Württemberg with >100,000 citizens ("Großstadt") left anymore.

Not sure if you're serious about this. Palmer is totally isolated within the state party and quite a few high-level party leaders of the Baden-Württemberg GRÜNE would love nothing more than to expel him as soon as possible.* And while he may be quite popular among some soft conservatives and Swabian housewives, he is absolutely detested by the rest of the party base. And I really mean detested. Even considering to nominate him would tear the party apart and severely endanger the Greens' current dominance among urbanites, migrants, U30, and the academic middle class.

I would also say that 'polarizing' is quite an understatement. He repeatedly made racist remarks, coined terms such as Menschenrechtsfundamentalismus (human rights fundamentalism), and was publicly accused of narcissism (Roth), social Darwinism (Kuhn) and xenophobia (the whole federal parliamentary group) by his fellow Greens. Even worse, he downplayed the dangers of COVID-19 and literally asked if the lives of the elderly are worth the lockdown measures.

There's probably a higher chance of Stefan Mappus getting his second term than of Palmer being anywhere near the Villa Reitzenstein.
___

*In May 2020, the Baden-Württemberg GRÜNE called on Palmer to leave the party voluntarily while announcing that they would not support him for another mayoral run in 2022.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Not sure if you're serious about this. Palmer is totally isolated within the state party and quite a few high-level party leaders of the Baden-Württemberg GRÜNE would love nothing more than to expel him as soon as possible.* And while he may be quite popular among some soft conservatives and Swabian housewives, he is absolutely detested by the rest of the party base. And I really mean detested. Even considering to nominate him would tear the party apart and severely endanger the Greens' current dominance among urbanites, migrants, U30, and the academic middle class.

I would also say that 'polarizing' is quite an understatement. He repeatedly made racist remarks, coined terms such as Menschenrechtsfundamentalismus (human rights fundamentalism), and was publicly accused of narcissism (Roth), social Darwinism (Kuhn) and xenophobia (the whole federal parliamentary group) by his fellow Greens. Even worse, he downplayed the dangers of COVID-19 and literally asked if the lives of the elderly are worth the lockdown measures.

There's probably a higher chance of Stefan Mappus getting his second term than of Palmer being anywhere near the Villa Reitzenstein.
___

*In May 2020, the Baden-Württemberg GRÜNE called on Palmer to leave the party voluntarily while announcing that they would not support him for another mayoral run in 2022.

I'm not quite sure if Palmer is really as detested among the Green party base as you claim. I know the party establishment despises him, and the university students/Antifa faction within the party base wishes him death. However, the Southwest Greens have very little in common with the Kreuzberg hipsters. The vast majority of the Swabian Greens are quite conservative, pro-business, bureaucratic, upscale and wealthy; they represent the "Bunny Caldwell" type of pseudo-liberals: They pretend to be "good human beings" full of good intentions, while slyly cultivating their contempt for mankind; they vow to behave ecoconsciously - and do it by driving their SUV 100 miles to the next eco-grocer to buy vegan lobster and champagne, or by travelling by plane around the world in order to spoon up their favorite sundae; they press for the abolition of the tripartite school system, while sending their own children to high-priced Rudolf Steiner schools, so that they won't come into contact with them unruly, anti-social, and at times criminal lower class kids.

Or in other words, transferred to and compared with American politics: The Baden-Württemberg Greens represent the Klobuchar-Heitkamp faction of their party, whereas the Kreuzberg Greens deify AOC. The only things both groups have in common is their predilection for esoterism and their strong stance against vaccination.

I don't know how Kretschmann's successor will be determined, but if they do it through a primary, Palmer would have a realistic chance of securing the nomination for minister president due to his not-to-be-underestimated grass roots level support. Do you still know Oswald Metzger? He was/is the archetype of a Southwest Green.

[palandio]

Oswald Metzger left the Greens in 2007 and has been a member of the CDU since 2008.

When talking about Palmer's chances to become Ministerpräsident we should try to separate this discussion from what we think about him personally. Personally I have sympathies for many of his politics although I think that his difficult persona gets in his way way to often.

That being said there's no chance he will get nominated by the Greens. Yes, he has a working relationship with his local party because most of the time he's pursuing ambitious Green politics on the local level. And yes, Kretschmann, Özdemir and others in the party have some sympathies for him and have tried to hold their hand over him again and again. Still Palmer (particularly as a public persona above the local level) and large parts of the Greens (even in Baden-Württemberg) are just too far apart, as has been proven by party decisions like the one cited by Pick Up the Phone. In the (purely hypothetical) case of his nomination the Baden-Württemberg Greens would burst.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Yes, he has a working relationship with his local party because most of the time he's pursuing ambitious Green politics on the local level.

This May, the leader of the Green caucus in the Tübingen city council had ruled out supporting Boris Palmer in future mayoral runs.

https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.boris-palmer-vor-parteiausschluss-fraktionschef-geht-auf-distanz.cf4f5bcf-e24c-4bee-945d-9c7945e07bf1.html

[Middle-aged Europe]

Personally, I'd set the likelihood of Boris Palmer becoming minister-president of Baden-Württemberg at some point in the future at about 3%, his best shot at that is leaving the Greens eventually  and forming a party of his own which competes in BaWü state elections. But even then it's a pretty wild longshot.

I'm surprised - and in part amused - that this is even a subject of a debate here (especially today, since much more interesting things are happening in Saxony-Anhalt right now). This is almost like discussing whether Gerhard Schröder will be the SPD's Chancellor-candidate in 2025.