2012 Elections in Germany

[Vasall des Midas]

Have a look at the SPD. I don't even know what the hell that is a map of.

Stable working class areas, those RedGreen swingers and suburbs full of ex-working class people Who Have Done Well For Themselves?

I'm of half a mind - only half, mind - to describe it simply as "stable areas". It was the best description I could find. Of course, that's still excempting the special situation on the left bank.

"Suburb full ow ex-working cass people Who Have Done Well For Themselves" sounds like a description of Nieder-Eschbach.

[Old Europe]

Infratest dimap poll for Northrhine-Westphalia, conducted and released today:

SPD 38%
CDU 34%
Greens 14%
Pirates 5%
Left 4%
FDP 2%

[Tender Branson]

Infratest dimap poll for Northrhine-Westphalia, conducted and released today:

SPD 38%
CDU 34%
Greens 14%
Pirates 5%
Left 4%
FDP 2%

[Tender Branson]

Nice article:

Germany’s most populous state to hold new elections as govt stumbles over budget

BERLIN — Germany’s most populous state will hold early elections after its minority government narrowly failed to get a budget passed Wednesday — a prospect that could boost the country’s center-left opposition.

All 181 members of the state legislature in North Rhine-Westphalia voted to dissolve it. That means a new regional election must be held within 60 days, although no date was immediately set.

North Rhine-Westphalia, a western region of some 18 million people that includes Cologne and the Ruhr industrial region, is governed by the center-left Social Democrats and Greens.

The vote Wednesday came hours after a budget proposal from the state government fell one vote short of a majority. Center-right opponents have accused it of poor financial management and demanded more belt-tightening.

Polls suggest Social Democratic Governor Hannelore Kraft and her coalition could benefit from the new election, which comes three years ahead of schedule. Those parties are in opposition nationally to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right government, but state governments wield influence in highly federalized Germany — not the least via the upper house of parliament, where they are represented.

Kraft’s center-left alliance took power in 2010, replacing a coalition of Merkel’s conservatives and the pro-market Free Democrats — the parties that form the national government.

Both voted against the new budget Wednesday because they wanted to reduce the state’s borrowing.

Merkel said new elections offered a prospect to elect “a government that won’t obstruct the state’s opportunities by taking on ever more debt.”

Norbert Roettgen, the local chairman of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union who is also her federal environment minister, said he would lead its bid to take back the state.

But that looks like an uphill struggle. Polls suggest Kraft’s coalition has a good chance of winning a majority and that the Free Democrats will struggle to win the 5 percent needed to keep their seats.

The Free Democrats, battered by their failure to win tax cuts, already are in danger of being ejected from two other state parliaments in votes over the next two months.

Elections in North Rhine-Westphalia won’t have a direct effect on the federal government. But an election campaign may prove a distraction, with national elections due in the fall of 2013.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/germanys-most-populous-state-to-hold-new-elections-as-govt-stumbles-over-budget/2012/03/14/gIQAGBR4BS_story.html

[Sibboleth]

So turkeys do still vote for early Christmases at times.

[Old Europe]

Shipload of new polls for the March/May state elections has arrived.


Saarland (Infratest dimap, 03/15)
CDU 33%
SPD 33%
Left 16%
Pirates 6%
Greens 5%
FDP 3%

Saarland (FGW, 03/16)
CDU 34%
SPD 34%
Left 15%
Pirates 6%
Greens 5%
FDP 2%

Schleswig-Holstein (dimap, 03/16)
CDU 34%
SPD 33%
Greens 15%
Pirates 5%
SSW 4%
FDP 4%
Left 3%

Northrhine-Westphalia (FGW, 03/15)
SPD 37%
CDU 34%
Greens 13%
Pirates 6%
Left 4%
FDP 2%

[Vasall des Midas]

Presidential result complained (no wait, that's not the word I meant. Damn, what is it... ugh, this actually took me a moment. Proclaimed, of course.)

991 to 126.
Somebody look up how many faithless electors that is, I can't be bothered. 7 electors were absent. The two Pirates abstained.

[Old Europe]

Joachim Gauck 991
Beate Klarsfeld 126
Olaf Rose 3
Abstentions 108
Invalid votes 4

CDU/CSU, SPD, Greens, and FDP have exactly 1100 electors together. Along with Free Voters and SSW, who had endorsed Gauck too, its 1111.

The Left has 124 electors, the NPD 3.

[Vasall des Midas]

Frankfurt once again did special ballots marked by age and gender in 24 selected precincts...

here are the results. First table compares turnout with previous mayoral elections, interesting point about the electorate this time having been somewhat on the young side, comparatively:



I hope you're all aware of the reason behind the pattern of male turnout among over 60s being higher than women's? No, it's not that these old wifeys come from a world when voting was a man's thing. That was the original theory when the pattern was first discovered half a century ago, and maybe it was a factor then, but maybe it never was. It's that because female life expectancy is higher, women over 60 are on average a fair few years older than men over 60, and more of them are very old and, frequently, infirm/senile/just not capable of and interested in caring about politicians not old enough to be their children and that they first heard of when they were already old. If you'd map turnout in Germany by single year of age, it'd slowly but steadily rise and rise and rise from age 18 to approximately life expectancy, and then jump off a cliff.



The apolitical/random Pirate pattern is explained, I suppose.

[RedPrometheus]

A new NRW poll released today (compared to 2010 results)

CDU: 33% (-1,6)
SPD: 39% (+4,5)
Greens: 11% (-1,1)
Left: 4% (-1,6)
FDP: 4% (-2,7)
Pirates: 6% (+4,6)
Others: 3% (-1,9)

Kraft is also much more popular. In a direct election 56 percent would vote for her, 26 percent for Röttgen.


http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/nrw.htm

[RedPrometheus]

And a poll from RLP:

CDU: 36% (+0,8)
SPD: 36% (+0,3)
Greens: 15% (-0,4)
FDP: 3% (-1,2)
Left: 2% (-1)
Pirates: 4% (+2,4)

Solid Red-Green majority.

http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/rheinland-pfalz.htm

[Old Europe]

A new NRW poll released today (compared to 2010 results)

...

FDP: 4% (-2,7)

Lindner surge!

Hey, even I like the guy a bit. They send their best man (that they've got left anyway).

[Tender Branson]

Lindner surge!

Barney Lindner 2012 !!!

[Vasall des Midas]

Overview on Frankfurt endorsements:
FAG - Feldmann (yesterday)
Greens - none (decided early)
Greens at Frankfurt University - Feldmann
FW - Rhein. Also late.
Left - Feldmann (no, technically they just told people to vote despite there being no good choice in order to prevent the unstomachable Rhein, without mentioning Feldmann by name )
Pirates - Feldmann. Reasonably early. Which the local papers and state broadcasting appear to have decided to suppress.

[Tender Branson]

I almost forgot there's a state election in Saarland tomorrow.

Here's my prediction:

35% SPD
33% CDU
16% Left
  5% Pirates
  5% Greens

  2% FDP 
  4% Others

Results in a SPD-CDU Grand Coalition.

[Vasall des Midas]

I almost forgot there's a state election in Saarland tomorrow.

Everybody does.

[Old Europe]

Saarland's population is slightly smaller than Rhode Island's and CDU and SPD have agreed on a grand coalition beforehand.

So, there are only two semi-important questions to settle:
1) Who becomes the strongest party, because this decides who is going to be minister-president in the grand coalition?
2) Are Greens and Pirates going to make it?

[Vasall des Midas]

Basically the fresh elections are the price the CDU has to pay for the Grand Coalition, yeah.
Then again, who knows what happens in negotiations afterwards. We've seen quite a few surprises in recent years.

The Saar Pirates have barely been founded and didn't have any sort of program by the time the election was called. The Greens deserve to be punished for Jamaica.

[Tender Branson]

Polls close at 6 ?

Do you think the Left with Oskar Lafontaine is once again underestimated, like before the last election ?

Do you think the Pirates are overestimated ?

I think both could be true.

We'll see in 50 minutes ...

[Tender Branson]

Turnout reports from 14:00 suggest that turnout might be back at the low end from 2004, when only 56% went to the polls. It could be slightly higher this year, somewhere between 55-60%.

[Tender Branson]

Exit Polls in 5 minutes.

[Tender Branson]

18:00 Exit Poll (N-TV):

34.5% CDU
31.0% SPD
16.0% Left
  7.5% Pirates
  5.0% Greens
  1.5% FDP
  4.5% Others

[Tender Branson]

ARD Exit Poll:

[Tender Branson]

Hmm, didn't expect the SPD to underpoll ...

[Vasall des Midas]

Very  strong Pirate showing. Hope the Greens snuff it.

Turnout in Frankfurt estimated at 34.5% (down 3.0 on first round)