Election of the weekend I: Hamburg

The German federal election last week basically tracked polling; if there was any surprise it was the strength of Die Linke, which makes me wonder if the BSW reactionaries breaking off to form their own party might have rendered the party more palatable to some actually progressive left-wing voters.

While it wasn’t unexpected (nor undeserved), SDP’s performance was a real low point for the party. In that context, Hamburg is worth watching in part to figure out how dire the situation is for the venerable party, as Hamburg has been an SDP stronghold for most of the post-war era. In 2020 they came up just short of 40%, forcing them into an alliance with the Greens (who were strongly in second). That was their worst result since 2001, but it looks great now: the SPD only managed 23% in Hamburg in the federal election, and is polling in the low 30’s for this weekend’s election, although trending up a bit lately. The Greens could potentially claim 2nd place again; both they and the CDU are polling in the upper teens. AfD’s explosive and terrifying growth has not extended into Hamburg much yet; they managed to enter parliament in 2015 with just over 6% (8 seats out of 123) and barely stayed in in 2020, losing a seat and coming perilously close to the 5% threshold. They appear to be on track to improve that performance, polling right around 10% right now, although they’ve recently been eclipsed by a surging Die Linke, leaving them in 5th place. FDP, BSW, and Volt are longshots to make the threshold.

Peter Tschentscher, the leader of the Hamburg SPD and current Mayor, has expressed an interest in continuing the coalition with the Greens, and polling suggests they’ll likely have the votes to do so, although without much less of a cushion than they currently have. If one or both party underperforms polling and/or one or more of BSW/FDP/Volt unexpectedly makes 5%, it’s possible they might need to look for an additional governing partner. I’ve found very little substantive coverage of this election, aside from this discussion of the top three party’s competing green energy plans.