🇦🇹 Austrian Elections & Politics 6.0 - Upper Austria election: 26 Sept. 2021

[Tender Branson]

It will still be interesting to watch the final result and see if the FPÖ collapses, how much the ÖVP improves from an already high level and if the SPÖ stabilizes or falls again. I also expect gains for the Greens and small gains for the Communists.

The combined statewide results should be:

49% ÖVP
30% SPÖ
  8% FPÖ
  6% Greens
  2% KPÖ
  1% NEOS
  4% Indys

Damn, that prediction could be within 1% for each party.

If the current trend holds.

241/285 towns counted.

[Tender Branson]

In 2015, the FPÖ won a single town out of 285.

Today, they collapsed from 46.6% to 13.7% there ...

[Tender Branson]

With 266/285 towns counted, the SPÖ is actually losing just 0.1% compared with 2015.

The party is doing better in bigger cities over 10.000 inhabitants and some of them are still left to count.

[Tender Branson]

Well, a revival of SPO in those circumstances would be nice......

It looks as if you were right.

The SPÖ will defintely improve compared with 2015 and finish ca. 1% higher.

Only 12/285 towns are remaining and most of them are the state's largest cities.

Currently, the SPÖ is 0.4% ahead of their 2015 results statewide.

That is good news for them when it comes to the Vienna election in October, because the big city results show that the huge FPÖ share from 2015 roughly goes to ÖVP/SPÖ 75-25.

[Tender Branson]

Only Leoben, the 2nd largest city behind the capital Graz, is left to report results.

I thought the final statewide result would be out by 9 or 10pm, because of the 200.000 postal and early votes, but it’s only 7pm ...

[bigic]

Result from the town of Eisenerz ("Iron Ore"):





Eisenerz is something like Coal Country in WV.

The city once had 15.000 inhabitants in the 1950s, now just 3.800 anymore.

It has the highest share of people older than 65 in Austria, with a 45% share. (Young) people have abandoned the town after the iron ore mining boom ended.

Now, the town is most famous for the Erzberg Rodeo, a huge annual event where motorcycles drive up the iron ore mountain in the town.

Usually an SPÖ and KPÖ stronghold (in 2015: 53% SPÖ, 20% KPÖ) - it now voted for the ÖVP.

With which party will ÖVP form the ruling coalition there?

[Keep Calm and ...]

Results

https://twitter.com/Wahlen_AT/status/1277316398763708417

[Tender Branson]

With which party will ÖVP form the ruling coalition there?

It wasn't mentioned anywhere, but I guess either ÖVP-SPÖ or ÖVP-FPÖ.

ÖVP-KPÖ is impossible.

Apparently, the ÖVP in Eisenerz had a convincing (and especially young) team in this election, winning over a lot of old (previously SPÖ and Communist-voting) people.

Here's a map of the results for each town:



Turquoise: ÖVP
Red: SPÖ
Beige: Independent lists
White: Graz

Too bad turnout dropped by more than 10%, but the 2015 municipal elections probably had higher than expected turnout, because the community mergers before that election were a hot, mobilizing topic. Before the 2015 elections, Styria had about 600 towns, that were merged into 286 in a big administrative reform. This, the non-competetive environment this time + Corona might explain the drop.

[Tender Branson]

Austria had ca. 464.000 registered unemployed as of yesterday.

That's ca. 139.000 more than at end of June last year, but ca. 125.000 fewer than at the peak in mid-April.

0.75 million employees are in "short-work", down from 1.35 million at the end of May.

The internationally comparable (ILO/Eurostat) unemployment rate, which always lags by a month, was 5.4% in May (up from 4.5% in May 2019).

https://orf.at/stories/3171844

[Tender Branson]

New OGM/Kurier poll for the October 11 state election in Vienna:

38% SPÖ (-2%)
24% ÖVP (+15%)
17% Greens (+5%)
10% FPÖ (-21%)
  6% NEOS (n.c.)
  4% THC (+4%)
  1% Others (-1%)

Direct vote for mayor:



Preferred coalition after the election:



Turnout:



68% will definitely vote
12% will probably vote
11% will probably not vote
  7% will definitely not vote

Of those 68% definitely voting, 62% will vote in-person and 31% with their postal ballot.

https://kurier.at/chronik/wien/umfrage-zur-wien-wahl-strache-ist-das-zuenglein-an-der-waage/400961984

[Tender Branson]

The final 2019 demographic changes were released today by STATISTICS Austria + the preliminary 1 April, 2020 population:

Austrian population reached 8.901 million on 1 January 2020 – increase of 0.48% in 2019

Vienna, 2020-07-06 – 8.901.064 people lived in Austria on 1 January 2020, according to the final results of Statistics Austria. Compared to the beginning of 2019, this represents an increase of 42.289 inhabitants (+0.48%). Population growth thus was slightly higher than in the year before: In 2018, the Austrian population had increased by only 0.41% (+36.508 people). About 96% of Austria's population growth in 2019 was due to international migration gains of 40.613 people. However, natural population growth also contributed to the overall increase.

http://www.statistik.at/web_en/press/123837.html

1.566 more births than deaths in 2019

Vienna, 2020-07-06 – In 2019, there were 84.952 births and 83.386 deaths in Austria, according to final results released by Statistics Austria. Thus, the excess of births over deaths amounted to +1.566 – a marginally higher natural population change than in 2018 (+1.560). Compared to the previous year, the number of births decreased by 583 (-0.7%) and the number of deaths declined by 589 (-0.7%). These figures also include 730 live births and 1.648 deaths of Austrian residents occurring abroad during 2019.

In 2019, 250 infants died during their first year of life. This translated into an infant mortality rate of 2.9‰.

http://www.statistik.at/web_en/press/123793.html

Net Migration of 2019 (+40 613) 15% higher than in 2018

Vienna, 2020-07-06 – In 2019, Austria registered 150.419 immigrations and 109.806 emigrations, as Statistics Austria reports. This resulted in an international net-migration gain of 40.613 people, an increase of 15% compared to the previous year (2018: +35.301), but still below the results of all years between 2012 and 2017, where net migration fluctuated around +43.797 (2012) and +113.067 (2015). Continuing a longstanding trend, more Austrian citizens left the country than migrated back to Austria, translating into a migration loss of 4.343 people in 2019. At the same time, a migration gain of 44.956 foreign citizens was recorded in 2019; an increase of 12.3% against 2018 (+40.017).

http://www.statistik.at/web_en/press/123841.html

By 1 April, 2020 the population increased by 10.000 to 8.911.000 people.

Components of change, by state:

Link

Population change in 2019, by district:



Natural change (births minus deaths) in 2019, by district:



Migration change in 2019, by district:



Population change in 2019, by town:



Natural change (births minus deaths) in 2019, by town:



Migration change in 2019, by town:

[President Johnson]

FPÖ collapsing across the board? That's nice. I was actually surprised they had that many votes in Vienna last time.

[Tender Branson]

FPÖ collapsing across the board? That's nice. I was actually surprised they had that many votes in Vienna last time.

Vienna voted a few weeks after the immigrant invasion from Syria etc. that was taking place in the fall of 2015. Plus, at the time Strache was seen as a competent campaigner and challenger against the worn-out SPÖVP machine. That’s why.

[rob in cal]

  Tender, how would you evaluate the current Kurz OVP-Green coalition in terms of the OVP not bending too far in the direction of the Greens and protecting its right flank from losses to FPO.  Also, the Greens in terms of being perceived as enabling Kurz and the OVP and thus losing voters to the SPO.  Seems like a difficult balancing act for both parties to accomplish this over time.

 Also, how has the new govt been handling immigration and asylum cases compared with OVP/FPO.

[Tender Branson]

 Tender, how would you evaluate the current Kurz OVP-Green coalition in terms of the OVP not bending too far in the direction of the Greens and protecting its right flank from losses to FPO.  Also, the Greens in terms of being perceived as enabling Kurz and the OVP and thus losing voters to the SPO.  Seems like a difficult balancing act for both parties to accomplish this over time.

 Also, how has the new govt been handling immigration and asylum cases compared with OVP/FPO.

There were only a few policy proposals other than Corona-related ones in the past months, but ÖVP-Greens did a more or less competent job on those measures. They also passed a first income tax reduction package for employees which will take effect soon, but which is smaller than originally planned because the Corona aid is already worth 10% of GDP and driving up the deficit.

Other than that, the ÖVP seems to allow the Greens enough room for themselves and voted to adopt the nationwide 1-2-3 public transportation ticket starting next year. It allows people to purchase a 365€ ticket and use all forms of public transportation within 1 state.

[Tender Branson]

New Vienna poll (Research Affairs / Ö24):



The election calendar will start on Tuesday, which means small parties can start collecting signatures for the election to appear on the ballot. The deadline to submit them is in mid-August.

[Tender Branson]

Note that even THC (Strache’s party) has to collect the 2.950 signatures in the next month to be on the Oct. 11 Vienna ballot.

THC actually has 3 of 100 seats in the Vienna parliament, so usually they would not, but Vienna has a statute that says that only parties winning representation in the previous election can run again without collecting signatures.

Strache’s group only split from the FPÖ a few months ago, so they need to collect.

Should be no problem for them though.

There are some 20 small groups/parties who want to run, among them LEFT (which includes the KPÖ), the Pan-European VOLT, the Satire Party THE PARTY or the Beer Party.

[Tender Branson]

Also, how has the new govt been handling immigration and asylum cases compared with OVP/FPO.

This has not been a topic at all in the last half year + asylum numbers have dropped to record-lows as well.

Asylum seekers with their claims rejected are still being deported though.

Business as usual.

https://www.dw.com/en/afghanistan-refugees-austria/a-54122207

[Tender Branson]

The final 2019 demographic changes were released today by STATISTICS Austria + the preliminary 1 April, 2020 population:

More demographical data was released today:

http://www.statistik.at/web_en/press/123903.html

In 2019, there were 46.034 marriages (among them 997 gay marriages, 2.2% of the total).

There were also 1.269 civil unions, among them 1.135 hetero and 134 gay civil unions.

Marriages decreased by 0.9% compared to 2018, but civil unions increased by 174%.

...

In the 1st quarter of 2020, there were 19.953 births (-1.6%) and 22.942 deaths (+1.4%), but the changes varied a lot by state: for example Tyrol was the only state that had both an increase in births and a decrease in deaths compared with a year earlier.

My district had 7% more births and 8% fewer deaths than in the 1st quarter of 2019.

Anyway, COVID has absolutely no effect on the overall death rate here.

Link

[Tender Branson]

New "Profil" magazine poll:



ÖVP-Greens job approval rating:

75% approve (-2 compared with June)

Methode: Telefonisch und Online-Befragung
Zielgruppe: Österr. Bevölkerung ab 16 Jahren
Max. Schwankungsbreite der Ergebnisse: ±3,4 Prozentpunkte
Sample:n=801 Befragte, Feldarbeit: 13. bis 16. Juli 2020

https://www.profil.at/oesterreich/umfrage-regierung-buesst-an-zustimmung-ein/400975088

[CumbrianLefty]

Looks like the OVP's "virus bump" is easing, then.

[Tender Branson]

Looks like the OVP's "virus bump" is easing, then.

No surprise.

I also expect that they will do worse in the Vienna election relative to current polling.

I think the SPÖ will win a big victory, with 40-45%.

The ÖVP around 20% (but 4-5% below their current polling).

The Greens also slightly less than their current polling: 14-15%.

[Tender Branson]

New Vienna poll by OGM for the "Krone" newspaper (July 13-16, n=801):

38% SPÖ (-1.6%)
23% ÖVP (+13.8%)
17% Greens (+5.2%)
10% FPÖ (-20.8%)
  7% NEOS (+0.8%)
  4% THC (+4.0%)
  1% Others (-1.4%)

https://www.ogm.at/sonntagsfrage/ogm-sonntagsfrage-wiener-gemeinderatswahlen-juli-2020

[Tender Branson]

Vienna turnout projected at 68%, down from a high 75% in 2015.

But 2015 saw higher-than-average turnout because there was a horserace for 1st place and because the immigrant invasion draw people to the polls.

https://www.krone.at/2194491

[crals]

What would it take for the Greens to switch sides in Vienna and form a coalition with OVP and NEOS instead? The Governorship?