Berlin after the re-election: This election card gives a deep insight

Political Map
The black ring: This election map of Berlin gives a deep insight

Black outside, green inside. How the Berliners voted can be summed up so quickly. However, a map shows much more.

While the conservatives in the capital are happy about the best election result for the Berlin CDU in 20 years, there is likely to be a mood of mourning in the SPD headquarters. They are ten percent behind the winners. The Social Democrats under the mayor, Franziska Giffey, suffered a literally historic defeat.

But: Where does the triumph of the CDU come from? After all, the Berliners have not only denied loyalty to the SPD. The Conservatives and their top candidate Kai Wegner have gained an impressive ten percent compared to the last election. A map provides information.

The older, the more conservative

If you didn’t know better, you might think that the map shows Berlin’s rent index: expensive center, affordable commuter belt. But far from it. Rather, the wide, black ring explains the embarrassed faces of the Berlin Social Democrats. It is thanks to the outlying districts that the CDU received an impressive 28.2 percent of the votes. A cliché has actually been confirmed here: the older, the more conservative. On average, significantly more older people live in the outer districts of the capital than in the inner city. In Tempelhof-Schöneberg, for example, where the CDU achieved its best result, almost every second person voted conservative – almost 28 percent of the people here are over 70 years old. According to the Wahlen research group, 38 percent of those over 60 have voted for the CDU. For comparison: “Only” a quarter voted for the SPD and nine percent for the Greens.

Green center, red east

Conversely, few seniors live in green areas such as Berlin-Mitte and Neukölln. In contrast, districts such as Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg 1, where four out of ten Berliners have ticked green, are much younger. In other words: Berlin’s center is young and bright green. Only the Mitte 2 constituency doesn’t quite fit into the picture. Here the CDU was the strongest force. Where does the conservative island come from? Mitte 2 is significantly older than the surrounding area.

But: why is the map so red? At least it’s not due to a red-green color blindness. After all, the Social Democrats had to cope with a bitter defeat, but they were able to get almost as many votes as the Greens.

The SPD and the left only got the majority of the votes in a few districts of East Berlin. Otherwise they have to be satisfied with second place in the center (sometimes by a wide margin).

Sources: Office for Statistics Berlin-Brandenburg; Research group elections; ZDF