2024 German state elections, final polling analysis.

all right in this video I want to take one final look at the polling for the elections in Saxony Thia and Brandenburg now we have the elections for Saxony and Thia in a few days now so the campaign is pretty much ended there's not going to be any more major polls that release so I want to take a look at what the average is what we can expect for the for the actual results on September 1st and also take a look at the 2019 polling and see if there were any polling misses and what we can take from that what we can expect uh if there's any misses on uh September 1st when we see the actual results and I want to take a look at the three states brandenbur is a bit later in the month of September but I want to still include it in this and of course we'll do a video in between the elections on the 1st and then the 22nd for Brandenburg to get a look and see if there's any changes in the polling but I want to start with the state of Thia Thia is a very important very crucial State uh this is a very contested election we see that there is a you know clear first second third fourth so there's not a you know two-way race but there are four parties that are each getting a you know above around 15% of the vote the afd here is around 30% you know clearly ahead they have dominated in most most of the East German states pretty much since around October of 2020 uh 2022 and the CDU is in a strong second here the left has been divided of course Dinka uh is very strong here in Thia the governor of the state bodoo is from Dinka they have an incumbent Governor here which strengthens the party even though it's collapsed in other states and of course the bsv is somewhat strong here as well this is Sarah's home state not politically but this is where she is from this is where she was born and grew up in and it's still an East German state so both parties have you know strong support so so of course the left here is very strong but they are divided between the two you know parties of the left and then the SPD and the greens down at 6 and 3% uh the SBD greens and fdp are struggling in pretty much all the East German states except with the exception of the SPD in Brandenburg where they're in power uh the greens and fdp will likely Fall below 5% a lot of the places the SPD is still a very strong political party even in places where they you know have been weakened they are still one of Germany's main political parties so they could fall below 5% but as of now they're you know favored to cross the 5% market around 6% of the vote but we see a very divided field here the afd very strong but of course Very controversial none of the other parties really want to openly work with them so we're in a position where there's not a real clear you know um chance or pathway for a majority government to be formed there's going to be very weird very different unorthodox coalitions that could be formed maybe between the CDU and some of the leftwing parties you could see the afd get into government although it's very unlikely so really no one knows what's going to happen here but as of you know the polls are showing we is the afd followed by a strong CDU and then the bsv and Dinka now what's important to not is of course Dinka is the party of the incoming governor and pulling in fourth place that is a big deal now what to look out for this election the afd if the afd wants to win in my win I mean they want to put themselves in a position where they pretty much can form a government and force the other parties to work with them they need to build a massive lead uh and they're going to need around 35% you know pushing the CDU down to 20 if they get get a big enough lead they can force they can kind of you know put theel put themselves forward and say the other parties need to work with them even that is not a given assuming they were to get that large you know amount of the vote but they are no they're not really close to that um so the CDU of course even in the second place Victory is as pretty much strong as the afd because they can put themselves in a position to form a a coalition against the afd working with maybe the bsv or having a minority government tolerated by Dinka or tolerating Dinka to keep Ramone power so different options here now if we take a look at the polls we can see that from the beginning of the you know covid era we saw a rise in support for the incumbent parties and this was the case D Linka under Bodo ramoo reached around 40% in some polls and then by the time of the 2021 election we saw the SPD rise of course the SPD under Olaf Schultz won a big victory in that election and because of that the SPD was you know seeing a high rise in most of the polls for all the states and so there was a tight four-way race but then of course after the Russia Ukraine conflict there was a lot of economic problems and this affected East Germany a lot differently than West Germany we saw the afd rise not just based on you know foreign policy issues but also on the economic issues as well internally in Germany with inflation Rising things like that and so we saw the afd rise very high and then once the bsv came along the afd started to drop some there also a number of scandals affecting the afd surrounding the European Parliament elections but nonetheless they have remained very strong here and we see that the bsv has overtaken the SPD and Lincoln put themselves in a very strong third place position now if we take a look at the ring from 2019 we see that the polls did not really change much from July and this was one of the states that had had their election later so Brandenburg and Saxon he had their elections in the on the 1st of September 2019 theingi was two months later and if we look at the polls we can see that the final result was a victory for Dinka and that was predicted in the polls as early as July the end of July early August 2019 so what we can see from this is that the polls we have now are going to be pretty much reflective of what we uh get on uh you know this Sunday so there could be a big polling Miss but at least as of now the polls are pretty much in line with the final result there's no major change in the polling uh in the final months of the election and we see there wasn't really much of a polling Miss um the CDU got slightly less than expected the Dinka got slightly more um Dinka probably took some support from the SP SPD and greens which got slightly less so as we can see that the incumbent the party that is predicted to do the the best the party in first place sometimes does even better um and then the afd also you know was basically in line exactly with uh with the polling so not you know much of a difference here um so we can pretty much assume that the results of the polling is is going to be what we're going to get on Sunday and there's not going to be any you know real changes from that other than a few points here and there now if we look at the next state we're going to see Saxony Saxon is very different from theingi it's a two-way race between two parties the CDU and afd are very strong here the CDU itself has been very strong in the state um they were very very strong in theingi but of course Dinka as a party was able to come to power and solidify itself on the state level that has not happened in Saxony there are places in the state such as Dresden and leiping in the major cities where on a local level uh you know the leftwing parties do have some power but in the Statewide the CD has dominated the state since 1990 since you know reunification and we see even with the rise of the afd you're splitting it between two right-wing parties very different parties but two parties of the political right and we see that this race is very different than Brandenburg and ring yet now it's very interesting here the CDU is ahead of the afd the afd was slightly ahead in the polls but one one issue here I think for the afds they've really maxed out in this state meaning the afd has already reached their ceiling of support in this state because in other states they were weaker they were competing with many different political parties in Saxony they were already reaching the 27 28% mark five points ahead of the other East German states and so I think that Saxon although they're increasing it's not as drastic as some of the other states where they had more room to grow but nonetheless they are you know clearly in second place they could end up winning the election this is the average so either the CDU or the afd could win first place however even if uh the afd wins first place I would say that the CDU is still favored to form the next government the bsv is of course not as strong here as some of the other states similar to that the fact that Dinka was not as strong here in previous elections the left wing parties do not tend to do as well but the bsv has of course solidified themselves as the main leftwing party they're beating all three of the other ones almost all three of them combined Dinka is below 5% which is very interesting because the East German states were once the stronghold of Dinka and then falling below 5% in Saxony which is the largest is a major development this shows that Dinka is struggling to survive as a relevant political force not only in Germany as a whole but even in their former strongholds the greens and SPD are both pulling around 5% they could fall below the threshold and lose seats but as of now it's going to be pretty much 50/50 on that there are some places in Dres in and life that could elect direct man Ates for both of these parties and that could allow them to there's a caveat where if they win enough direct mandates direct seats they can win seats proportionately that could happen with some of the Cities but nonetheless we see kind of a a close race between the CDU and afd it will be a victory for the afd if they gain or if they come first place but they likely will not come into government now if a look at the polls we can see of course sa sax as I said a kind of tough race between the afd and the CDU early on during Co or 2021 There Was You know the CDU was clearly heading the polls and then the afd started Rising around you know October 2022 the same as the other parties and then we can see that when the bsv came on as a political force the afd started to lose some support and that's when the CDU kind of gain gained the edge again so it it's up in the air who's going to win this election or who's going to come first place rather uh and then the government for formation will be another another thing so and if we take a look at the polls for Saxony we see something very interesting um the polling misses in Saxony were really related to the AF and the left wing parties the CDU got pretty much what they were expected to get they were pulling around 30% they got around 32 so maybe slightly ahead but the big misses were for Dinka which was pulling in the average in almost every poll at around 15 16% and only got 10 and the afd was pulling at around 25 24 and they got 27.5 so what happened was the CDU and the afd both you know did very well in this election the afd did better than expected but at the last minute a lot of Voters from the SPD and Dink kind of went to the CDU to block the afd or some of them went to the afd and we saw that this two-way two-way race kind of played off of each other where a lot of Voters said this is a race between the CDU and the afd the afd is the only party that can challenge the CDU and those who want change are backing the afd and those who want to prevent the afd should vote for the CDU instead of parties like the SBD so we saw in the last minute the CDU surg some and the afd you know surged by a few points at the expense of the other parties and that was kind of reflected in the final result as well but if we see there was a you know even back then there was a clear race between the CDU and the afd which were polling at first and second for a long time even in the CDU despite them winning did not win by a large margin of only around four points so the election will be similar this time probably in slight increase in support for both the CDU and afd and of course the parties like the SPD and the greens are going to struggle to reach that 5% Mark uh but of course we have the bsv included in this so not you know too interesting not really you know too much of a interesting development happened later on most of the polls were reflective of the final result now the last state I want to go to is Brandenburg and like I said Brandenburg will not take place the election will not take place until the 22nd of September so it's going to be a few more weeks and I will do another video looking at the polls for Brandenburg after with the elections in Saxony and Thia now if we take a look at Brandenburg we can see that the afd is weaker here than in other states but it's also likely because it's a kind of four-way race and it's really a four-way race even for first place all these parties have the possibility to win first place the afd is in 24% at you know first place the CDU and the SPD are both tied at around 20% in the polls of the bsv falling behind you know close fourth at around 177% now a a polling you know Miss with a few points in a direction could really uh swing this any way it's probably unlikely that the bsv will win and beat the afd there is a seven-point gap between the afd and the bsv but the SPD could win uh I think it's unlikely I think the afd will end up winning this election not by a huge mark um but we could see you know what is important to take a look at for these results is whether or not the CDU or SPD will come second or the bsv will come second because that will line up who is going to challenge the afd who's going to be leading the opposition or forming a government depending on who um you know wins the election who is able to form you know put forward a governor and so it's very important which place these parties uh end up in and so very interesting race now if we take a look at the polls for Brandenburg we can see similar things in the other states we saw at the beginning of Co kind of a rise towards both the SPD which was the state incumbent party and the CDU which was the Federal incumbent party and also the CDU was in the state government at the time and the afd kind of stagnated the afd also had some very you know big infighting in the state their former leader Andreas Kitz was kicked out by the federal party and there's a lot of dispute over that and so they fell very low but of course around Fe you know February October 20122 at the kind of first backlash to the problems created by the Russia Ukraine conflict uh the sa did start to rise again in the polls and came on par with the SPD in around November 2022 and of course has led ever since now the SPD has fallen due to their you know unpopularity at the federal level and the CDU has kind of remained steady the rise in the bsv has taken some support from all three parties you see that the afd is not as strong as they once were but are still a very big political force in Brandenburg and are still likely going to come first place now if we take a look at the polls for brandenberg we see a similar in a similar situation uh you know the polls for 2019 we see a similar situation to the other two states in pretty much all cases the incumbent party did better than expected but the afd also did pretty good they did at least what the polls were expecting if not more and we can see this is the case for Brandenburg the SPD was the SPD and the afd were polling at around 21% each the SPD did around four points better reaching around 26% in the final result and the afd did around one one and a half points better reaching 23.5 the CDU did slightly worse around 15 .6 so just around one two points below what the polls were but of course once again the big polling Miss was Dinka which Dinka in both Saxony and brandberg were polling at around 15 16% but only got around 10 it was only Thia that was different because bod ramoo the governor was there uh from Dinka and that played a completely different role in the election because Dinka was you know the party of the incoming Governor that it was there was a personality Factor there it was a completely different election uh than these two so that was the big po Miss also the greens dropped below 5% so we see kind of what happened was support from Dinka and the greens went to whatever party was best positioned to defeat the afd so in Brandenburg a lot of Voters last minute switched to the SPD to beat the afd and in Saxony it was you know some SPD and green voters switching to the CDU now of course there were some voters from Dinka that didn't vote there were some even that voted for the afd and that you know kind of gave the afd its strong support winning you know both voters from the left and the right on also people had never voted before but if we can see you know from this result the overall polling Miss not too major but we can expect uh based on these polls that the parties that are in the incumbent parties so I would say the CDU and Saxony the SPD and Brandenburg are probably going to do in line with what the Polish show or slightly better and the afd will probably do pretty good it seems that the afd when they are losing popularity do worse than expected but when they're gaining popularity better than expected one very important instance was in 2016 in Saxon and HED the first East German state election with the afd uh well first after the migration crisis surge in 2015 they won 24% despite only being around 18% in the poll so that was a Sixpoint Miss but of course in 2021 at the same elections in Saxon when the afd was declining they did around four points worse than expected so I think the afd will do pretty well here but I think whatever part's position whatever party voters see as positioned best to defeat them will also do slightly better in the polls but of course in Brandenburg it's not really clear because in 2019 it was clearly the SPD but this time the SBD and the CDU are both polling pretty well these SD is very unpopular so there could be a split in the voters and that could allow the afd to you know build up a bigger margin than expected so that's going to be it for this video I wanted to kind of talk about all these results we will have I'll do try and do another video on these elections before the elections themselves and then of course once we get the results I will cover those after September 1st and then we will have the elections in Brandenburg later this or later next month and of course the Austrian Federal elections and a few Austrian State elections which I will cover as well so if you do like these videos please like share subscribe and I will see you all in the next one thank you for watching