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The elections in the most populous federal state of Germany do not provide any information about the federal political form of Armin Laschet. But they continue a trend: Social Democracy is staining everywhere, while the Greens are experiencing ups and downs.
The number of postal voters in local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia has increased dramatically, as here in Dortmund, due to the crown pandemic.
“Candidates win on the spot, not the state government.” Armin Laschet already gave a relativizing narrative on Sunday afternoon. In the local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, this was the Prime Minister’s message shortly after casting his vote in Aachen: you win alone and, above all, you lose alone. He did not even want to allow the common understanding that the elections were a referendum on his run for the crown or even his ambitions to become federal president of the CDU.
In fact, the test did not provide any particular information on the political form curve of Laschet, who was involved on all kinds of fronts. The CDU maintained its relative strength in this year’s most important elections in Germany with a good 14 million voters. Sunday night was screened with about 36 percent approval, and therefore just above the worst result it had ever achieved in the state. However, the Prime Minister euphoric declared his party as the “winner of the elections”.
Greens earn around seven points
The SPD, on the other hand, was put under the wheels in one of its core countries, where he held the post of prime minister until three years ago. It lost eight percentage points and was clearly relegated to second place with about 23 percent. The Greens, on the other hand, were able to win a good seven points to almost 19 percent and saw themselves as the real winners of the elections in North Rhine-Westphalia. The AfD doubled its approval to a good five percent. FDP (5 percent) and Izquierda (3.5 percent) roughly maintained their 2014 results.
Second round elections in Cologne, Dortmund and Düsseldorf
The Social Democrats were also unable to score in their strongholds on Sunday. In Dortmund, where the party has been mayor since 1946, its candidate Thomas Westphal will have to run in the second round against CDU candidate Andreas Hollstein on September 27. The Greens already signaled on election night that they want to support the latter and a change in the city. According to the opinion research institute Infratest-Dimap, the SPD lost approval in all age groups. The party fell significantly, especially when it came to the absolute number of voters.
One of the few bright spots that night was in Mönchengladbach, where the 31-year-old SPD candidate Felix Heinrichs is likely to participate in a runoff against the CDU’s favorite member of state parliament, Frank Boss, for a broad margin. In Düsseldorf, on the other hand, incumbent Thomas Geisel (SPD) will also be in the second round of the elections against Stephan Keller (CDU) on September 27. Federal party chair Saskia Esken commented on the ZDF debacle: “This is, of course, a disappointing result. We have not been able to make it clear that there is a difference where the Social Democrats rule. “
As in the European elections in May 2019, the Greens scored particularly well in the urban-university environment. They recorded increases in Dortmund, Bonn, Düsseldorf and Wuppertal, for example. In Cologne they replaced the SPD with almost 30 percent as the strongest force in the town hall. In the largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, the current mayor Henriette Reker, supported by the Greens and the CDU, has to go to the second round elections against the SPD candidate Andreas Kossiski on September 27.
According to Infratest-Dimap, the most important reasons for voters in North Rhine-Westphalia were the environment and climate (31 percent), ahead of concerns about the economy (28 percent), school issues and education (23 percent), immigration and integration (21 percent). as well as transportation and urban planning (19 percent).
Greater voter turnout
The turnout was 51.5 percent (2014: 50.0 percent). Due to protection measures against the pandemic, those who were willing to vote had to wait a long time to receive their votes, despite the high quota of votes by mail. 250,000 voters had sent votes by mail. This also considerably delayed the tallying of the results of Sunday night’s elections.
The elections in North Rhine-Westphalia are the third largest vote after the federal elections and the elections to the European Parliament in Germany. 14.3 million citizens were summoned to the polls on Sunday (Germans aged 16 and over, but also EU citizens residing in the country). There were around 20,000 mandates in 31 districts, 24 independent cities and 396 municipalities.
In the coming year, local elections in Hesse and state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate will usher in the super election year. This is followed by the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt and the federal elections in the autumn.
Topographic shock absorber for Laschet
A real brake for Armin Laschet came on Sunday with a view to the federal government of Berlin: in a poll by “Bild am Sonntag”, 31 percent of the Germans questioned said they trust Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder to succeed the chancellor Angela Merkel. The CSU chief is clearly ahead of federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU), who achieved 14 percent approval, and Friedrich Merz (CDU) with 13 percent. Laschet is far behind Bayern at 8 percent. With Union supporters, Söder is even more clearly ahead at 46 percent.
