🇩🇪 German federal election, 23 February 2025

[Yeahsayyeah]

As one question, that came up in this thread was "How did migrants vote":

It looks like Forschungsgruppe Wahlen in their exit poll explicitly asked Muslims how they voted
On behalf of muslim-centered political blog/platform/whatever Itidal:
https://itidal.de/bundestagswahl-2025-wie-haben-muslime-gewahlt/

Left: 29%
SPD: 28%
BSW: 16%
CDU/CSU: 12%
AfD: 6%
Greens: 4%
FDP: 0% - Yeah, it's rounding, but lol
Others would be 5%

[Yeahsayyeah]

Meanwhile on the other side of the Iron Curtain...uh...well look at this thread

It is just about possible that there are some wry jokes that could be made about the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart...

They've already been made...all of them...for several years... it's tiresome for non-fascists from the East...it really is.

[Yeahsayyeah]

Anything of interest to note about the two constituencies in the West that the AfD won (Gelsenkirchen and Kaiserslautern)? Or just a case of the AfD coming out at the top of a pileup?

A bit of both. Downtrodden old Industrial areas with many problems where one would expect them to do well, especially If the SPD declines. In a seven Party system, low twenties can be enough to "win", then.

The Tageszeitung had an article/report about Gelsenkirchen today.

https://taz.de/Wahlergebnis-in-Westdeutschland/!6068621/

The SPD candidate alleges that the situation and the debate/resentment about migration, especially in Gelsenkirchen, but to some degree everywhere at the Ruhr, is aggravated by a large amount poverty-driven migration, especially from Bulgaria and Romania - read: Roma people - that are often living under miserable conditions, are often not suited for the German job market and fall back on the known survival strategies of marginalized groups, of whose petty crime is a typical part.

I was aware of this phenomenon concerning Duisburg, but not that it seems to have spread to other cities in the area in greater numbers.

[minionofmidas]

Some remnants in the north to remind us what once was, more AfD leads than ever (because the CDU is well down on 2023 - the AfD is down slightly statewide, actually), and then oh hi Raunheim
How did Sören Bartol hold the Marburg constituency exactly?

[#UnbanTender]

As one question, that came up in this thread was "How did migrants vote":

It looks like Forschungsgruppe Wahlen in their exit poll explicitly asked Muslims how they voted
On behalf of muslim-centered political blog/platform/whatever Itidal:
https://itidal.de/bundestagswahl-2025-wie-haben-muslime-gewahlt/

Left: 29%
SPD: 28%
BSW: 16%
CDU/CSU: 12%
AfD: 6%
Greens: 4%
FDP: 0% - Yeah, it's rounding, but lol
Others would be 5%

This is just migrants from Turkey and MENA. Russian Germans are heavily AFD. You can see it from the results in places like Marzahn or Pforzheim.

Anyway, here's a precinct map of Berlin, scrollable to 1990
https://interaktiv.tagesspiegel.de/lab/bundestagswahl-2025-berlin-karte-historische-ergebnisse-wahlkreisergebnisse-stimmbezirke/

[New England Fire Squad]

Does anyone have the vote totals and percentages split between West and East? I'm curious as to whether the SPD came in third behind the AFD in West Germany or not, and whether West Berlin was the deciding factor. Thanks all

[minionofmidas]

Does anyone have the vote totals and percentages split between West and East? I'm curious as to whether the SPD came in third behind the AFD in West Germany or not, and whether West Berlin was the deciding factor. Thanks all

They're on wikipedia.

W & W Berlin CDU 30.7, AfD 17.9, SPD 17.6, Greens 12.7, Left 7.9, FDP 4.6, BSW 3.8
E AfD 34.5, CDU 18.4, Left 12.9, SPD 10.9, BSW 9.9, Greens 6.6,  FDP 3.1

...or so I thought but then I clicked on the source and saw they used whole constituencies, so Mitte is west and Kreuzberg east here, though I don't think that changes much of anything.

[Yeahsayyeah]

As one question, that came up in this thread was "How did migrants vote":

It looks like Forschungsgruppe Wahlen in their exit poll explicitly asked Muslims how they voted
On behalf of muslim-centered political blog/platform/whatever Itidal:
https://itidal.de/bundestagswahl-2025-wie-haben-muslime-gewahlt/

Left: 29%
SPD: 28%
BSW: 16%
CDU/CSU: 12%
AfD: 6%
Greens: 4%
FDP: 0% - Yeah, it's rounding, but lol
Others would be 5%

This is just migrants from Turkey and MENA.

Well, yes it's explicitly "How did Muslims vote?" and I said that?

BTW, Bosniaks, Albanians and Afghans exist, too. ;-)

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The inevitable Turkish migrant Erdogan/Die Linke voters lmao. Deeply unserious.

[President Johnson]

The inevitable Turkish migrant Erdogan/Die Linke voters lmao. Deeply unserious.

I would assume a majority of Linke and SPD voters of Turkish origin either didn't vote in Turkish elections or didn't back Erdogan. Meanwhile, Erdogan voters in Germany often don't have German citizenship and therefore couldn't vote in the Bundestag election.

While the group is not representative, I personally know several fellow SPD members of Turkish origin. All of them are secular Muslims with college/university degree and highly critical of Erdogan and the AKP.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The inevitable Turkish migrant Erdogan/Die Linke voters lmao. Deeply unserious.

I would assume a majority of Linke and SPD voters of Turkish origin either didn't vote in Turkish elections or didn't back Erdogan. Meanwhile, Erdogan voters in Germany often don't have German citizenship and therefore couldn't vote in the Bundestag election.

While the group is not representative, I personally know several fellow SPD members of Turkish origin. All of them are secular Muslims with college/university degree and highly critical of Erdogan and the AKP.

Given German Turks voted 67/33 for Erdogan, even with the differential citizenships there'd have to be a sigificant proportion. And ofc active SPD members are going to have significantly different views from average German/Turks who happen to vote for the SPD.

[minionofmidas]

The Green map looks flatter than recently to my eye, but I'd need to look at it again. Otherwise the most eyecatchong things are old

[ingemann]

The inevitable Turkish migrant Erdogan/Die Linke voters lmao. Deeply unserious.

I would assume a majority of Linke and SPD voters of Turkish origin either didn't vote in Turkish elections or didn't back Erdogan. Meanwhile, Erdogan voters in Germany often don't have German citizenship and therefore couldn't vote in the Bundestag election.

While the group is not representative, I personally know several fellow SPD members of Turkish origin. All of them are secular Muslims with college/university degree and highly critical of Erdogan and the AKP.

Given German Turks voted 67/33 for Erdogan, even with the differential citizenships there'd have to be a sigificant proportion. And ofc active SPD members are going to have significantly different views from average German/Turks who happen to vote for the SPD.

I think it’s more interesting to see that in the context of the turnout

[Sir Mohamed]

Looking at the results again, it seems like Germany really dodged a bullet with BSW falling short by 13k votes. Not just because of their pro-Russia stances, even on immigration. Ironically that would have led to the opposite BSW voters wanted, which is a departure from the Merkel migration policies. Ergo, Merz would have underdelivered on the issue. I suppose it's already difficult to convince SPD to adopt his policies.

If BSW getting in required another coalition of 3 parties (counting Union as one), it would inevitably have caused more infighting and bad governance. Consequently, trust in the government declines again what helps Afd and BSW.

[President Johnson]

First talks between Union and SPD are scheduled to begin tomorrow. Each side will send nine representatives for first discussions to form a new government.

[JimJamUK]

First talks between Union and SPD are scheduled to begin tomorrow. Each side will send nine representatives for first discussions to form a new government.

What’s the expectations in terms of policy? Under Merkel it was generally viewed that she made a lot of concessions to get SPD support (far too many in the view of many right wingers), how much and where will Merz compromise?

[Estrella]

The thicker boundaries are boroughs. In Berlin 60.3% of electors voted in person and 39.7% by post. Because of the huge amount of postal votes, I didn't use polling stations but the slightly larger Briefwahlbezirke, so what you see are the sums of the postals and the day votes from the one/two/three polling stations they covered. These things might be done differently from city to city, but I imagine this is also the case for Lewis' Frankfurt maps. There's also surprisingly few ties – the white areas – considering what a pileup this was.

Results by borough. It's second votes, of course. The leftmost colour strip is the party that came first in the area, the highlights show where the party's vote was above its citywide result. The East-West division is done on the polling station level, so it's accurate unlike the borough-based one that some other places use.

Turnout.

Small parties. The Sonstige include Freie Wähler (winning 1–2% in some precincts in the east of the city), MERA (the German branch of Yanis Varoufakis' DiEM25), Team Todenhöfer (a sort of BSW five years too early and/or one of many attempts at a German Denk) and BüSo (LaRouchist perennial candidates founded by Lyndon's German wife).

[buritobr]

Heidi Reichinnek should offer TED lectures and MBA courses about how to rescue an organization which was close to bankrupcy

[Crazy Steve]

Still surprised how high turnout was at 83%, especially in the cities, compared to rural areas.

In the US election and neighboring Austria a few months before, turnout in the cities lagged rural areas by a lot, but in Germany it was as high, or even higher. What could be the reason for this?

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

So Merz is really doing everything he can to piss off the SPD, huh. He really cannot control himself, whether it's insulting the voters directly or slighting the other co-chair of the party. He does realize that the SPD base needs to approve the coalition agreement, right?

Meanwhile, our favorite demagogue Markus Söder is the one being very conciliatory.

[minionofmidas]

The thicker boundaries are boroughs. In Berlin 60.3% of electors voted in person and 39.7% by post. Because of the huge amount of postal votes, I didn't use polling stations but the slightly larger Briefwahlbezirke, so what you see are the sums of the postals and the day votes from the one/two/three polling stations they covered. These things might be done differently from city to city, but I imagine this is also the case for Lewis' Frankfurt maps.

Just spotted this - while Frankfurt too nowadays groups just one to three precincts for postal votes, I'm using a mathematical model to redistribute postal votes to the precinct level. (I developped that when Briefwahlbezirke were larger; I might not have bothered nowadays.)

[Sir Mohamed]

So Merz is really doing everything he can to piss off the SPD, huh. He really cannot control himself, whether it's insulting the voters directly or slighting the other co-chair of the party. He does realize that the SPD base needs to approve the coalition agreement, right?

Meanwhile, our favorite demagogue Markus Söder is the one being very conciliatory.

Do you think there's a greater than 1% chance the talks or membership vote fail? I was told chancellor election on the floor is probably working out since it was always successful on the first ballot.

That said, another snap election would probably help Afd and even bring in BSW. That would make things more complicated. That's also why I think SPD can't risk overplaying their hands. This isn't the Merkel era anymore.

[Oryxslayer]

So Merz is really doing everything he can to piss off the SPD, huh. He really cannot control himself, whether it's insulting the voters directly or slighting the other co-chair of the party. He does realize that the SPD base needs to approve the coalition agreement, right?

Meanwhile, our favorite demagogue Markus Söder is the one being very conciliatory.

Do you think there's a greater than 1% chance the talks or membership vote fail? I was told chancellor election on the floor is probably working out since it was always successful on the first ballot.

That said, another snap election would probably help Afd and even bring in BSW. That would make things more complicated. That's also why I think SPD can't risk overplaying their hands. This isn't the Merkel era anymore.

At the end of the day, despite worse overall vote shares than Merkel, Merz can play fast and lose because there both is and is no other coalition option. Nobody believes/wants/imagines the whole of the Union will tolerate approaching the AfD, but at the same time, the AfD is still there. The SPD can't let that possibility get above a 0% chance, and at the same time aren't in the position for revote - there is no option other than what is negotiable at the table.

They, and the Greens of course, would have cards to play if both two-party coalitions were mathematically viable, but we didn't end up in that timeline.

[rob in cal]

Anyone care to do a socioeconomic analysis of the strongholds and weak points of the different parties in Berlin?

[buritobr]

Anyone care to do a socioeconomic analysis of the strongholds and weak points of the different parties in Berlin?

I have been only some days in Berlin, the Germans can answer better. But from what I believe:

CDU: mainstream wealthy in the west
Green: hipster wealthy in the west
Linke: urban working class, hipsters in the east
AfD: lower middle class suburbans