State elections in Hesse and Bavaria: Rhine CDU triumphs, Söder manages 37 percent

According to an ARD forecast, Prime Minister Markus Söder’s CSU emerged victorious from the state elections in Bavaria with another weak result. According to the forecast by the Infratest dimap institute, the Christian Socials will receive 37 percent of the vote. The Greens were able to defend second place with 16 percent, while the AfD came third in Bavaria with 15 percent. They are followed by the Free Voters with 14 percent and the SPD with 8.5 percent, while the FDP would leave the Munich state parliament with three percent.

The CDU became the strongest force in the state elections in Hesse. According to forecasts from ARD and ZDF, Prime Minister Boris Rhein’s Christian Democrats are well ahead of their coalition partners the Greens and the SPD. Depending on the forecast, the AfD is roughly on par or ahead of the other two.

The polling stations are closed, the first forecasts and projections will be coming soon.

In Munich, voter turnout – including postal voters – was 61.3 percent at 3:30 p.m., slightly lower than five years ago. In Nuremberg, voter turnout at 2 p.m. was 41.4 percent, slightly lower than in the last state election. In Nuremberg, only three fifths of the postal voting documents issued were counted at 2 p.m. In Augsburg, voter turnout at 2 p.m. was 31.2 percent, well below the turnout five years ago. In the city of Bamberg, 65.2 percent of eligible voters – including postal voters – had voted by 3 p.m.

The returning officer in Bavaria expects a comparatively low voter turnout in the state elections. By 2 p.m. on Sunday, turnout was 35.4 percent, as state returning officer Thomas Gößl in Fürth reported, citing random samples at polling stations. From this information and the expected proportion of postal voters, “a first estimate of overall voter turnout derive. This is currently around 60 percent.”

According to a spokeswoman for the Bavarian authorities, no interim survey on voter turnout was made in the 2018 state elections. The overall voter turnout at that time was 73.2 percent. The authority therefore assumes that the proportion of postal voters will be significantly higher this year – based on the number of ballot papers requested, it could be around 40 percent.

According to state returning officer Wilhelm Kanther, the Hessian state election has so far gone without any problems. Until the afternoon, there was initially a lower voter turnout at the polls than in the previous state election in 2018. By 2 p.m., voter turnout without postal voters was 27.7 percent, as shown by queries in the five independent cities of Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Wiesbaden, Offenbach and Kassel. In the previous state election at the same time, a figure of 38.8 percent was determined without postal voters. Overall, 67.3 percent of those eligible to vote cast their votes in the state election at the time.

However, because of postal voters, the meaningfulness of the values ​​is considered limited.

Smaller Excursus on voting rights: In the state elections in Bavaria, compared to the federal election, for example, there is a central difference that is of enormous importance for the future composition of the state parliament: to determine the distribution of seats in the state parliament all first and second votes added together and converted into mandates. The number of total votes decides which party will have how many representatives in the state parliament in the future. This means that the first vote is just as important for the distribution of seats as the second vote.

The first numbers on voter turnout come from Bavaria: In Munich, including postal voters, it was almost 44 percent at 10:30 a.m., significantly higher than five years ago. In Nuremberg, voter turnout at 10 a.m. was over 11 percent, slightly higher than in the last state election. In Nuremberg, however, only a fifth of the postal voting documents issued were counted at this point, emphasizes a spokesman for the electoral office. In Augsburg, voter turnout in the morning was 7.6 percent, lower than five years ago.

Nancy Faeser apparently got up a little later than Markus Söder, but is now also casting her vote. The SPD’s top candidate in Hesse appeared with her husband Eyke Grüning at the election office in Schwalbach am Taunus, but unlike Söder, she prefers to put her ballot in the ballot box alone.

Hesse has been black-green for almost ten years. Will it stay that way? A closer look at the state:

Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder has already made his cross. Together with his wife Karin Baumüller-Söder, he throws his ballot into the urn in his constituency in Nuremberg. “We want a stable and strong Bavaria. But now we wait and see what the people in Bavaria decide today,” says Söder afterwards.