State of the German polls: Is the SPD doomed and the AfD headed for third place?

 Data and Methods, Politics  6 Responses »
Sep 152017
 

It’s just a single poll

Once more, repeat after me: It’s just a single poll. It’s also the time for horse-race journalism (and for horse-race blogging). In this specific case, the single poll is the most recent instalment of the “Deutschlandtrend”, a survey-series that Infratest-dimap runs for public broadcasting giant ARD. From the results (SPD: 20, AfD: 12), Focus Online has created a lovely headline: SPD in freefall, AfD at highest level of support in seven months. But is there really a story?

Horse-race blogging

Now for the horse-race blogging. Since my last blog (day before yesterday), three new polls have been published. Why bother to start the big and mysterious poll-pooling machine again? Because I can, because in a week or so, there will be no new polls, and because I want to see if there is anything to the Focus story.

First, a closer look at the Infratest-dimap poll, which is clearly the most recent piece of information: field time was only the last two days (September 12-13), and it was published immediately. The other two “new” polls are not really that new. They were in the field from September 8-11 (Insa) and September 4-8 (Forsa) and put the SPD at about 23 per cent and the AfD between 9 and 11 per cent for these slightly earlier time spans. Does that suggest some dramatic movement during the last couple of days? Not really. Infratest-dimap tends to produce somewhat low-ish estimates for the SPD, and rather high estimates for the AfD. The (estimated) house effects are -0.7 and +1.7 points, respectively. The house effects are not calibrated in any way, so Infratest-dimap’s estimates may be perfectly correct, but across all the polls in the model, their estimates for these two parties tend to be below/above average. This is neatly illustrated in the graph:

afd-insa-2017-09-15.png

All Infratest-dimap polls (the hollow circles) put the AfD well above the model-based credible interval, and this one (the rightmost circle) is particularly far away from the envelope. The current credible interval for the AfD is 8.6-10.3%. The AfD’s mini-upward trend may be real, but this poll is probably exaggerating the development.

Infratest-dimap may also underestimate support for the SPD. The model currently puts the SPD between 21.4% and 23.6%. The Infratest-dimap poll (rightmost filled red circle) is well below the credible interval. Things don’t look great, but it’s not “freefall”. The credible interval for the gap between the the SPD and the AfD is 11.6-14.6 points, so the 8 point gap reported by Focus on the basis of a single poll looks like a bit of an over-dramatisation. The AfD is not (yet) catching up with the Social Democrats.

spd-union-2017-09-15.png

 

 

So what?

Will the AfD be Germany’s third party? In the model-based simulations, their chances have gone up from 18% to 39%, but that is still far from certain.In actual fact, according to the model, the Left has a better chance (50%) to become the largest of the minor parties. But that would be a far less dramatic story. And realistically, this is all by the by: the four minor parties enjoy virtually identical levels of support.

overall-estimates-2017-09-15.png

Coalition options are the same as they were three days ago. So what is the bottom line? This last poll (and the other two) make good headlines, but in terms of likely politically relevant outcomes, the situation has not changed at all.

State of the German polls: Move on, (almost) nothing to see here

 Data and Methods, Politics  6 Responses »
Sep 122017
 

With less than two weeks until the election, we now have 153 surveys from seven different companies to pore over. The bulk of these (104) were produced by Emnid, Forsa and Insa. GMS and Allensbach have delivered only a handful of polls (seven and nine, respectively), while FGW (15) and Dimap (18) occupy the middle ground. Although this is the so-called “hot phase” of the campaign, with TV debates, tours of the country and whatnot, there is still very little movement in the (averaged) results. Unless my model is filtering out too much noise, or the polls are off, which are two entirely plausible and not mutually exclusive ideas.

The AfD and the Left are perhaps gaining some ground

left-afd-2017-09-11.png

Estimates for both parties have shown an upward trend for the last couple of weeks, but the gains are very moderate (a point apiece or so), and given the credible intervals, the movement is not necessarily real. But the AfD is probably doing a bit better than they did in late June, which marked their low point during the campaign.

Support for the Liberals and the Greens is mostly stable

greens-fdp-2017-09-11.png

The respective upward trends for the other two minor parties are even less pronounced. More importantly, both parties seem to have stabilised well above the electoral threshold

The tiniest of declines for the major parties.

spd-union-2017-09-11.png

Conversely, support for the two major parties may have fallen a bit. But the credible interval for the Christian Democrats is particularly wide because there is a lot of variation in their results, whereas numbers for the SPD are all very close to the credible envelope. Spare a thought for them: It’s abundantly clear that even with their recent relative weakness, the CDU/CSU are much stronger than the Social Democrats.

Overall estimates and possible coalitions

overall-estimates2017-09-11.png

With about a fortnight to go (polls are published with a delay, and the model assigns each poll a notional date in the middle of the actual field phase) and many postal votes already cast, the overall picture looks very much like it has for weeks now. Support for all four minor parties is virtually identical and above the electoral threshold. The SPD is hovering somewhere between 20 and 25 per cent, while the Christian Democrats are located somewhere in the high thirties.

The Guardian may daydream about a black-green coalition, but that is not very plausible at the moment: not in a single one of 60,000 simulated outcomes would such a coalition achieve a majority. Obviously, a red-green coalition is even less probable, and a red-red-green majority is out of the question, too.

Nine days ago, there was at least a chance (23%) of a traditional centre-right majority, but with the (moderate) decline in support for the Christian Democrats, this looks highly unlikely (0.1%) now. However, both a “Jamaica” coalition and a Grand coalition are feasible in all simulations. So once more, a fourth term for Merkel seems to be inevitable.

State of the German polls: The initials of Germany’s next chancellor would seem to be A & M

 Data and Methods, Politics  8 Responses »
Sep 022017
 

Eight months of polling

While I was doing other stuff, elsewhere, the German polling industry has been busy. Over the last eight months, the big seven have published results from 144 surveys with a total of 266,715 respondents. With just three weeks to go until election day (and postal voting well underway, what can they tell us?

They AfD is good at spinning

Much in line with the tenor of the international press, a British journalist asked me the other day how the AfD had managed to “bounce back”. Well, they have not. The height of their popularity was arguably in 2015/16, when they were solidly in double-digit territory for a while. Since the beginning of the long campaign in January (when the AfD did better than now), they have been stuck between seven and ten per cent in the polls. This pattern still holds. The AfD gets 10/11 per cent in two recent polls, but these were conducted by companies that tend to produce rather high estimates for the party’s support. In other equally recent polls, companies that tend to give lower estimates for the AfD put them at nine / eight per cent, respectively. Unsurprisingly, the credible interval for current AfD support ranges from 7.8 to 9.3 per cent.

afd-insa-2017-09-02.png

Another object of rather intense media focus has been the question whether the AfD will be Germany’s third-strongest party on September 24. The aggregation model is not sure: In 10,645 of 60,000 simulated outcomes of the election, the AfD is the strongest of the minor parties. That’s 18 per cent of all runs, which roughly translates to “rather not”.

left-afd-2017-09-02.png

Either way, the question is quite irrelevant. The real issue here is that all minor parties enjoy very similar levels of support. If this support translates into real votes, there will be four minor parties in parliament, and coalition building is going to be a difficult, but not impossible (see below).

greens-fdp-2017-09-02.png

The Christian Democrats will be the strongest party (bloc) by a fair margin

Long gone are the days of the “Schulz Effect”, this dreamy moment early in the campaign when support for the SPD and the Christian Democrats became indistinguishable. For weeks on end, the CDU/CSU have been roughly 15 percentage points ahead of the SPD. One must admire the dedication of the SPD’s campaigners, but closing that gap looks like a very unlikely feat.

spd-union-2017-09-02.png

A look at possible coalitions

So far, the field has changed very little over the last weeks:

overall-estimates2017-09-02.png

While tactical voting can mess with support for the FDP (that’s the way I burnt my fingers four years ago), not a single simulation out of 60,000 suggests that the FDP will remain below the electoral threshold. All four minor parties are currently well above the electoral threshold, and their respective levels of support are indistinguishable. Take that, media people.

In terms of possible coalitions, that means (amongst other things) that right now, there is no chance for a leftist (red-red-green) government: the combined vote share for the three left parties is in the range of 39-41 per cent. This implies that there is no majority for an SPD/Green coalition, too. There is also no majority for a “traffic light” (SPD/Green/FDP) government. In sum, on current polling the probability of an SPD-led coalition (and hence the probability of a Schulz chancellorship) is nil.

But there is a not-too-shabby chance for a traditional centre-right coalition. Thanks to the strong support for the Christian Democrats, the CDU/CSU and the FDP have a (narrow) majority in 23 per cent of the simulations. A “Jamaica” (CDU/CSU+FDP+Greens) coalition would have a solid majority in all of the simulations. And of course, there is always the prospect of yet another Not-so-Grand coalition.

So it looks that I was right to sell in May and go away: If the polls reflect the reality of German politics, and if that reality remains reasonable stable for another three weeks, there are 2.23 viable coalitions that would be led by Angela Merkel, and not a single one that would be headed by Martin Schulz.

State of the German polls: Sell in May and go away

 Data and Methods, Politics  14 Responses »
Jun 152017
 

The final polls for May are in, bringing the total number to 87. As in previous instances of this analysis, the bulk of the data comes from Emnid, Forsa, and INSA. As always, it would be great to have more data from the other companies to play with.

Pollster n
allensbach 5 8
dimap 10 11
emnid 22 9
forsa 21 9
gms 4 9
insa 17 10
poba 8 7
All 87 9

The Schulz boost is over, yes?

spd-union-2017-06-06.png

For the two major parties, May has confirmed a trend that began in April: the Christian Democrats are regaining support at an almost constant rate, whereas the Social Democrats are losing support in similar proportions. Both parties are more or less back where they started in January, before Schulz’s candidacy was announced. Incidentally, that is roughly where they were four years ago at the same time in the electoral cycle.

Why was Schulz / the SPD unable to retain the support they had in February/March? I think there are three reasons for their surge and decline:

  1. Any surprise replacement for the unpopular Sigmar Gabriel would have been a clever move. Presenting a new figure energised the party and created a lot of positive media coverage for the SPD.
  2. Schulz was a known unknown in German politics. As former president of the European Parliament, he had a reasonably familiar face. At the same time, no one hat the slightest idea what he stood for in terms of domestic policies. That made him a canvas on which everybody could project their personal image of the perfect challenger. Moreover, his initial assessment was largely based on personality, which allowed him to benefit from Merkel fatigue (TM).
  3. But … Schulz disappeared for weeks, he failed to explain what would make him a better chancellor than Merkel, his trade mark issue of “social justice” is popular in Germany but not really divisive given the socialdemocratisation of the CDU under Merkel, and Schulz was also implicitly blamed for the string of lost Land elections. Sad. Loser (for the time being).

The AfD and the Left are stable

left-afd-2017-06-06.png

This is a very boring picture. While the two major parties are battling, the far-left and the far-right party have been mostly stable and neck-on-neck in the polls since mid-March. Truth to be told, there is a lot of movement in the polls, particularly for the AfD, which in May was put anywhere between 6 and 10 per cent. But the model believes that this is a combination of noise and house effects, and that the true level of support has hardly changed.

With respect to the AfD, INSA remains the most bullish and FGW remains the most bearish house. But even for INSA, there is some variation (8 to 10 per cent), whereas Forsa sees the AfD as absolutely stable at 7 per cent.

afd-insa-2017-06-06.png

The FDP is back. Or is it?

greens-fdp-2017-06-06.png

Both the Greens and the FDP have been stable for months, with the latter positioned in many survey too close for comfort to the electoral threshold. But support for the FDP (who in 2013 lost representation in the Bundestag for the first time since 1949) has risen in May, allowing them to overtake the Greens for the first time since the campaign began in January. This reflects their good performances in the latest Land elections. However, it is difficult to tell whether they really have a lead over the Greens. Polls for both parties vary quite a bit, and so the model gives them wide-ish credible intervals and suggests that the gap between the two is already closing again.

Overall estimates and possible coalitions

overall-estimates2017-06-06.png

On current polling, six (or seven, if the two Christian Democratic parties are counted separately) parties would enter parliament. All four minor parties are well above the electoral threshold of five per cent, and statistically indistinguishable from each other.

Between the two major parties, there is a very visible gap whose credible interval is 11 to 16 per cent. There are still three months to go, and polls are not predictions, but the Schulz effect would have to return with a vengeance to close this distance. In a renewed Grand Coalition, the SPD is likely to be the junior partner.

But could Schulz still be chancellor by ganging up with smaller parties against Merkel? Again, this is not a prediction, but on the basis of the polls, it seems unlikely. In 60,000 simulated draws from the estimated distribution of political support, not one shows a majority for a red-green coalition. The same goes for a red-red-green majority, even if that was politically viable (a question the SPD will not dignify with an answer), and for a “Traffic Light” (SPD, FDP, Greens) coalition.

For the last year or so, I had alway assumed that the AfD’s likely entry into the Bundestag would deprive a would-be centre-right government of their majority. But the remarkable rise of both the Christian Democrats and the FDP suggests that there might be a chance for a traditional black-and-yellow coalition: In 19 per cent of the simulations the two parties achieve a (bare) majority necessary to form a government. And rather intriguingly, in all 60,000 simulations there is a majority for the still somewhat exotic “Jamaica” coalition (Christian Democrats, FDP, Greens). And of course, both major parties together would always command a majority of at least 60 per cent.

Put differently, given the current state of the polls, it would be impossible to form a coalition without the Christian Democrats. Which in turn means that the initials of the next chancellor would inevitably be AM.

State of the German polls: The AfD is stable. Also: kein Schulz, nirgends

 Data and Methods, Politics  23 Responses »
May 122017
 

13 new polls show some movement in April

It is four and half months until the September election, and things are getting a little more interesting. Everyone around here is happy that Macron saved the EU and defeated populism in one fell swoop (or maybe not), but I still love a nice parochial state election. And we had a good one: Last Sunday, the small northern state of Schleswig-Holstein went to the polls. The current coalition (SPD, Greens, and the Danish/Frisian minority party SSW) is unusual enough, and they lost their majority of a single seat. The CDU won a bit, the SPD lost a bit more, but for them, it’s a disaster since expectations were high (Schulz effect, anyone?). The Left and the Pirates are out, and both the Greens and the FDP are in double digit territory. Certainly, this is not a federal trend. The AfD made into the Landtag for the 12th (?) time in a row, but barely (5.9%).

Further to the south, North Rhine-Westphalia will have its own election on next Sunday. Here, the red-green coalition is in trouble, because the Greens are doing very poorly, and SPD support is lacklustre. The CDU, which has been trailing the SPD for a long time, is catching up, and both the AfD and the FDP are doing ok, though not great. It’s not quite clear if the Left will make it, and the Pirates (remember?) seem poised to lose their last delegation in a state parliament. What ever happens here will inevitably been read as a bellwether, because of the state’s size (it is home to almost a quarter of Germany’s population), and because it is the last state election before the federal election.

Meanwhile, 13 surveys that poll federal voting intentions have been published. Taken together, there are now 17 polls to track the developments in April (and several that already extend into the first weeks of May).

The CDU/CSU is the strongest party now, but not very strong

spd-union-2017-05-12.png

Ever so slowly, the CDU/CSU have managed to pull ahead of the SPD. The Christian Democrats now stand at about 36 per cent. While this makes them the strongest party by far, they polled about 40 per cent four years ago at the same point in the cycle.

For the SPD, the famous Schulz effect has worn off a bit. April was a slow dive that has probably taken them below the 30 per cent threshold once more. While they are still doing much better than they did in January, their support has declined considerably over the last six weeks.

The Greens and the FDP both move up a tiny bit

greens-fdp-2017-05-12.png

The Greens, on the other hand, have probably moved up in April, but only by about a point. Compared to where they stood a quarter ago, they are still performing poorly. The FDP may have gained a point, too, and are now indistinguishable from the Greens: they both hover somewhere just below eight per cent.

The AfD and the Left remain tied in the same spot

left-afd-2017-05-12.png

Scandals and quarrels on the one hand (AfD) and non-events (the Left) on the other not withstanding, both parties have remained exactly where they were all through April: tied, and between eight and nine per cent. Move on, nothing to see here.

Overall estimates and possible coalitions

overall-estimates-2017-05-12.png

On the last day of polling so far (May 9), support for all four minor parties is statistically indistinguishable, and they are all safely (though not comfortably) above the electoral threshold. The gap between the major parties is quite pronounced at 8 points (the largest difference in months), with a credible interval of 6-11 points.

Given the weakness of the SPD and the strength of the Christian Democrats, it is hardly surprising that the simulated probability of a red-red-green majority – hotly debated only a two months ago – is zero. The same goes for the “traffic light” option. Let us not even contemplate the prospects for a red-green majority.

But due to the strength of the AfD, a centre-right coalition would also have no majority, CDU recovery or not. Conversely, the probability of a Jamaica (CDU/CSU + FDP + Greens) majority is 99.9%. Put differently, on current levels of polling, every viable coalition would be led by the CDU, and Merkel would have a choice between a) continuing an unhappy marriage with a spouse that wants out or b) entering a risky but also exciting ménage à trois. Which just goes to prove the point that it is impossible to do political analysis without resorting to tiresome sexualised metaphors.

State of the German polls: The CDU edges up, and the AfD is still stable

 Data and Methods, Politics  12 Responses »
Apr 212017
 

On the 108th day of polling …

… my true love gave to me: two Dimap polls, two Forsa polls, two INSA polls, one Emnid poll, and one FGW poll. So the total number of polls in the database stands at 59 now. Not too shabby. However, three companies dominate the pool: Insa (11), Emnid (15), and Forsa (15). It would be good to have more polls from Allensbach, Dimap, FGW, and GMS.

The CDU is leading, but by a small margin

spd-union-2017-04-21.png

Following the surprise candidacy of Martin Schulz, the SPD made enormous strides, and the two major parties have been neck-on-neck for more than two months. But over the last couple of weeks, the Christian Democrats finally managed to regain a lead over their current coalition partner, although it is a tenuous one compared to their previous standing in the polls. For April 18, the model estimates support for the Christian Democrats at 36 per cent (with a 34-37 per cent credible interval), and support for the SPD at 31 per cent (CI: 30-33).

The FDP and the Greens are still struggling

greens-fdp-2017-04-21.png

The Greens have not recovered from the drop they suffered in January. Quite to the contrary, support for them seems to have fallen a bit further during the last four weeks or so. But this movement is well within the margin of error. The FDP, on the other hand, may have recovered a little bit, but again, they are still within the CI they were two, four, or even eight weeks ago. Statistically speaking, support for both parties is indistinguishable at the moment.

The Left and the AfD are remaining neck-on-neck

left-afd-2017-04-21.png

And the same goes for the Left and the AfD. Support for both parties is estimated at 8 per cent, with a 7-9 per cent credible interval. Infighting within the AfD has reached new heights (lows?), and the party may even split again (by the way, I’m really looking forward to the Hunger Games of this weekend’s party conference), but so far, this has had relatively little effect on their polling results, which are still within the (lower) bound of the credible intervals for March. Conversely, support for the Left may have risen a bit but is still within the (upper) bound of their credible interval for March.

Overall estimates and possible coalitions

overall-estimates-2017-04-21.png

From this final graph, it is clear that the credible intervals for all four minor parties overlap at the moment: in all likelihood, they are all somewhere above the electoral threshold and below the ten per cent mark, but there is insufficient evidence for determining how exactly voters rank them at the moment.

For the two major parties, the uncertainty regarding the exact levels of their support is even larger, but the probability that the Christian Democrats are enjoying higher levels of support than the SPD is more than 99 per cent. However, due to the uncertainty about the parties’ standing, the uncertainty regarding the size of this gap is substantial: the credible intervals stretches from 2 to 7 per cent.

Given these estimated levels of support, neither a “civic” (FDP/Christian Democrats) nor a classic leftist (SPD/Green) coalition would be possible. As a consequence of the Christian Democrats’ rising popularity, even a red-red-green coalition would be possible in fewer than 2 per cent of the simulated draws from the posterior joint distribution. A “Jamaica” coalition of Christian Democrats, FDP, and Greens, on the other hand, would command a parliamentary majority in 71 per cent of the simulations. Having a choice between two coalitions would obiously strengthen Merkel’s hand considerably. But once more, remember that these are not predictions but rather (hopefully) plausible estimates of the current state of public opinion.

State of the German polls: the AfD is down, but not out

 Data and Methods, Politics  18 Responses »
Apr 072017
 

What’s the matter with the AfD?

Over the last couple of weeks, the mainstream media (or as the AfD would have it, the “lying press”) have begun to write off the AfD as past its sell-by day (btw, did you realise that we won the battle against populism when Wilders performed slightly less well than expected after some early polling?). There are basically three reasons for that:

  1. New lows of infighting
  2. The Saarland election
  3. A modest slump in the polls

Let’s look at them in turn.

More infighting in the AfD

I cannot remember how often I have used the phrase “fear and loathing” by now, but hey, it still fits. Frauke Petry and her supporters in the national and state-level leadership are still trying to expel regional leader Björn Höcke over his Holocaust comments. Höcke’s own chapter, however, have just selected him as a delegate for the upcoming party conference. Within her own chapter, Petry is under pressure because she is seen as a) too moderate and b) too obsessed within her own agenda. Just yesterday, the Stern magazine leaked a draft resolution for the party conference which aims at re-defining the AfD as a “moderate”, “civic” outfit that would in principle form coalitions with other parties. This is particularly funny once you remember that this is exactly what Petry’s predecessor Lucke had in mind before Petry ousted him with a little help from the less-than-moderate elements in the party. And the list goes on …

What about the Saarland election?

In the election for the Saarland state parliament, the AfD won six per cent of the vote, which is a bit of a comedown after the party’s performances in the last round of state elections in 2016. The media read this as an omen for the Bundestagswahl in September, which is nonsense for a number of reasons: First, the AfD tends to do better in the eastern states. Second, and more importantly, state elections tend to be affected by federal politics, but only up to a point: first and foremost, they are regional affairs. In the case of the Saarland, this means (amongst many other things) that the regional chapter of the AfD is so closely enmeshed with right-wing extremists that the national leadership tried to disband the chapter only last year.

Yes, you read that right. The move was blocked by the AfD’s highest internal court, which ruled that the evidence against the chapter was insufficient. The national leadership then asked the state party to clean up their act and not to take part in the election. The state party declined that request. Their frontrunner candidate was caught on camera selling Nazi devotionalia in his shop only weeks before the election. And they still got six per cent of the vote in a high turnout election. Not too shabby, I would think.

What do the polls say?

How strong is the AfD? Depends on whom you ask

Repeat after me: “It’s just a single poll” … which is not entirely true any more. The last nine days have brought the same number of new polls (pushing the total to 51), the last of which seem to indicate a further slump of AfD support. Just today, FGW published findings from another Politbarometer survey, which has the AfD at six per cent (that’s the mood, i.e. weighed but not otherwise adjusted data), even worse than the seven per cent Forsa gave them after the Saarland election. Even INSA, who are always rather bullish on the AfD, reported a mere nine per cent support on Monday. But another Forsa poll as well as an Emnid poll which both gave the AfD nine per cent again went largely unnoticed. And FGW always generates huge negative outliers (which still might represent public opinion accurately) when it comes to the AfD. My model, which aims at factoring in these things, currently puts them at eight per cent – definitely less support than they had in January, but sufficiently far away from the electoral threshold

afd-insa-2017-04-07.png

For all purposes and intents, the Left and the AfD are currently indistinguishable.

left-afd-2017-04-07.png

But the same can not be said for the FDP. For the first time since I began pooling the polls in January and less than six months before the election, support for the FDP may have fallen below the electoral threshold. As of Wednesday (the mathematical midpoint of the FGW poll), the estimated probability of the FDP having exactly five per cent support or more was 64 per cent. As one of the great political philosophers of our time is apt to say: SAD. Losers?

greens-fdp-2017-04-07.png

Support for the Greens, on the other hand, is lower than it was in January but has been stable at this level for the last two months.spd-union-2017-04-07.png

And finally, the major parties. According to their political preferences, the media have variously reported an ongoing Schulz effect, the Christian democrats catching up with the SPD, or Merkel pulling far ahead. The latest polls seem to support any of these views. They look rather noisy, and estimated levels of support are still overlapping: the Christian democrats could be anywhere between one point behind or five points ahead of the SPD.

In sum, the overall estimates have not changed much over the last two weeks. The two major parties are more or less neck-on-neck, with the CDU/CSU still struggling to re-establish a clear lead. The AfD, Left, and Greens are all well below ten and well above five per cent. The only relevant change is that the FDP has slipped back a bit, which brings them perilously close to the electoral threshold.

overall-estimates-2017-04-07.png

This, in turn, rules out a “civic” coalition: in 60,000 simulated draws from the posterior, not a single one indicated that on current levels of polling, the FDP and the Christian Democrats could be able to form a government. Neither is there a red-green majority. A red-red-green coalition (vastly unpopular with most voters) is a mathematical possibility in 63% of all draws. Unsurprisingly, it becomes much more likely (99%) if the FDP is out. A “Jamaica” coalition (FDP, Greens, Christian Democrats) is not even mathematically likely (11%), and the odds for a “Trafficlight” coalition (FDP, Greens, SPD) are even worse (2%). On the other hand, unless the AfD makes a massive recovery, there is no chance that a Grand Coalition would not have a crushing majority. Watch this space

Is INSA overreporting support for the AfD?

 Data and Methods, Politics  4 Responses »
Mar 292017
 

The other day, someone on twitter suggested that the polls on the upper margins of my latest model-based estimates of AfD support were conducted by the “notoriously AfD-friendly INSA company”.

This view is not uncommon in Germany. INSA, who do polling for Germany’s premier tabloid Bild, want to prop up support for the AfD via a band waggon effect, because there is an alleged business and ideological link between their CEO and the AfD’s notorious Thuringia chapter (in German) – or so the story goes. A more innocent explanation is that INSA polls are based on internet access panels, and that the AfD is probably the most internet-savy party in Germany and hence overly popular with heavy users.

But is there any evidence of overreporting? As you can see here, INSA’s average estimate of AfD support is just one percentage point above the grand mean of all measurements – not such a huge difference. Also, they have only contributed seven polls to the total pool of 43 major polls whose results have been published since January.

Pollster n  AfD % (average)
Allensbach 2 10
Dimamp 6 12
Emnid 11 10
Forsa 11 10
GMS 2 10
INSA 7 11
Poba 4 7
All 43 10

And perhaps these polls were conducted earlier in the year, before the model suggested that the AfD’s support fell by a couple of points? But no, this is not the case. INSA polling goes back until the first week of February. (In fact, there are even some INSA polls from January, which are not in the database because of a glitch in the script that I use to pull the data from the interwebs.) More importantly, each and every of the seven INSA polls is well above the credible interval around the model-based estimate:

afd-insa-2017-03-29.png

So yes, INSA’s readings of AfD support are clearly unusually positive. But so are the Dimap polls, whereas FGW (Poba) are taking a distinctly bearish view.

Avid readers will remember that the model tries to account for party-specific house effects, under the overly optimistic assumption that these sum to zero across all firms. Given the small overall number of polls, and given that Allensbach and GMS have only published two polls each so far, I wouldn’t trust these estimates too far, but just for fun I’ve pulled them out of the mountain of simulated draws. According to the model, INSA overreports AfD support by 2 points (CI 1.5-2.6), Dimap by 1.8 points (CI 1.1-2.5), whereas FGW underreports AfD support by 2.5 points (CI -3.2-1.8). It will be interesting to see how the numbers develop over the coming months, and whether these estimates will square with the actual result. For the time being, take them with an appropriately large dose of salt.

State of the German polls: no major news on minor parties

 Data and Methods, Politics  13 Responses »
Mar 232017
 

Eight new German polls

Over the last fortnight, eight new polls have been published: two by Insa, two by Forsa, and one apiece by Dimap, Emnid, GMS, and FGW. For GMS, it is only the second poll conducted since the beginning of this year (a third one was published early in January, with fieldwork partly carried out in late December). As usual, there is quite a bit of variation in the data (hence the pooling), although there is no such shocker as the (unweighted) FGW poll done in mid-February which put the SPD at 42 per cent, twice of what they had been polling in early January.

The SPD and the Christian Democrats are in a dead heat, but …?

Probably no “but” so far. Back in late January, the SPD’s fortunes began to rise rapidly thanks to their new candidate Martin Schulz (aka St Martin), and by early February, support for the two major parties had become statistically indistinguishable. For the last ten days or so, the model has put the CDU about a percentage point ahead of the SPD, but that does not mean a thing: the credible intervals are still more or less identical. The SPD’s rise and rise in the polls has stopped in March, but the Schulz effect is still very much a thing.

spd-union-2017-03-24.png

The Left and the AfD

Since January, the AfD has lost a bit of steam (i.e. about 2 points) in the polls, but it is still the strongest opposition party at just under 10 per cent. The model-based line in the graph suggests that over the last couple of weeks, the party has recovered a wee bit, but that movement is negligible (have a look at the scale), just a teensy-weensy wiggle well within a wide credible band. Similarly, the Left is basically where it was two (and four, and six) weeks ago at 7.5 per cent.

left-afd-2017-03-24.png

The Greens and the FDP

The Greens had a bad start into the campaign. Just when they had selected two Spitzenkandidaten from the more conservative wing of the party (signalling that they might enter a CDU/CSU/Green coalition), the SPD pulled a Schulz on them by choosing a leader who would attract leftist voters and would at least ponder the prospects of an SPD/Left/Green coalition. The Greens lost a couple of points in January and early February but have been perfectly stable since. Conversely, the FDP may or may not have won a point since February. Like with the AfD, the wiggling is not impressive, given the width of the credible intervals. But importantly, this interval has not touched the electoral threshold of five per cent during the last three months, though the threshold is never that far away.

greens-fdp-2017-03-24.png

Conclusion

The polls are noisy as ever, but the model, which tries to account for house effects and random errors, suggests that the noise is just that, and that so far there was no real movement in political support in March. This picture is at least plausible: Apart from the AfD, all parties have selected their respective Spitzenkandidaten by now, it’s still six months to go,  and there have been no major domestic events.

overall-estimates-2017-03-24.png

At current levels of support, the Bundestag would have two (relatively) major parties that could continue the Grand coalition, although it’s not quite clear which one would hold the chancellorship, and four almost identically-sized minor parties, commanding between six and ten per cent of the vote. In such a relatively fragmented parliament, the chances (in a purely statistical sense) for forming a SPD/Left/Green coalition are slim: Only in 15 per cent of all draws from the (simulated) joint distribution of support is there a sufficient red-red-green majority. At 12 per cent, the chances of a numerical majority for a “Jamaica” coalition (Christian Democrats, FDP, Greens) are even lower. In none of the the simulations is either a SPD/Greens or Christian Democrats/FDP coalition feasible. It would be Grand Coalition, or new elections, or minority cabinet rule (a first). But remember the mantra: It’s six months to go, we’re very much talking about political mood, not firm intentions here, and this is just a model that tries to average over many different noisy and potentially biased polls.

Nick Griffin, Trump, Google Scholar, and some more: five links I liked

 Links  1 Response »
Mar 222017