BRANDENBURG ELECTION POST: SPD leading AfD in early projections, Greens facing their worst result since 2004
Also open thread.
Just minutes ago, the polls closed in Brandenburg. The last of the dreaded East German elections has come to an end, and with it the final chance of Alternative für Deutschland to destroy democracy in the Federal Republic this year.
Brandenburg has been core SPD territory since reunification, but the Social Democrats have had to fight hard there this election cycle. The SPD, after all, are the leading party in the hated Berlin government, and their nationwide stock has probably never been lower. The Minister President of Brandenburg, Dietmar Woidke, has worked hard to distance himself and his state-level party from the broader SPD, and particularly from the widely loathed SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
That strategy appears to have born fruit. The SPD enjoyed a late surge in the polls, and the present projections by state media broadcasters ZDF …
… and ARD …
… have the SPD leading, if just barely. The big question now is whether the Greens will make it over the 5% hurdle for representation in the Landtag or not. They are teetering right on the edge.
I am currently on a train, but I’ll try to update this post as the numbers become clearer.
UPDATE: It is now clear that SPD leads AfD in Brandenburg by a percentage point and change. As predicted, the Greens are totally fucked, early projections that they had beaten the 5% hurdle were due to faster counting in urban centres, in the end it was not very close. Looks like SPD and the BSW (Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance) will have just enough votes for a majority government in the new Landtag.
Here is a picture from my new house in Thüringen:
I wonder if there is the "shy" AfD voter that could be throwing off the polls?
In the US the "shy" Trump voter is roughly 4-7% of the electorate.
So I wonder if we can trust these polls given AfD has just recently become more than a mere party of protest
It'll be interesting to see.
Well, it's like the polls here in the US, really. The Democrats are tearing their hair (in all its rainbow glory) out over it being neck-and-neck when they can't understand how they haven't managed, despite every demonization trick in the handbook, to generate a landslide.
But being that close is a very considerable victory.