I know this is not the most confident headline from a forecaster but I’m trying to be a bit more cautious than in 2021. I wrote some pretty bad takes in the last election cycle. I said for example that the SPD was doomed and the CDU/CSU was a strong favorite to win the election, neither of these came to…
Author: Malte Meissner
The 2025 edition of the Vorcast model
If there’s one thing I was not in the mood for after the US election in November 2024, it was another high-stakes election – but here we are. The unpopular German “Traffic Light” coalition collapsed and a new federal election is expected to take place on February 23, 2025, seven months before the regularly scheduled election was to take place.…
The wild (by German standards) election of 2021
It’s always funny to me how quickly an election becomes a distant memory. The clarity that follows election results makes all the pontification, prophesying, and predicting beforehand seem immediately ancient. The big takeaway from the 2021 election is that the polls were quite good. They were also extremely sensitive — both over and under emphasizing shifts in the electorate. Additionally,…
It’s the pandemic, stupid
One of the main reasons I started this blog is because I think that the media often overlooks the big picture and long-term trends. I want to offer my readers a long-term perspective on German politics. With the 2021 election drawing nearer, the media cycles are becoming shorter and shorter. Small gaffes are amplified, individual polls are overemphasized, and the…
It’s the CDU/CSU’s election to lose
Sometimes the obvious take is the right take, even though it’s boring. Germans don’t like change. The Christian Democrats have been in charge for the last 16 years and they will almost certainly be in charge after September’s election as well. Get used to saying chancellor Armin Laschet. My model has predicted the CDU/CSU to be the most popular party…
Part II: Why the SPD has made way for Die Grüne
Nerd alert: This is the second article of a two-part series (see the first here). It’s a bit heavier on the statistical vocabulary than other posts on this blog. The Green Sleeper Hit If you’ve already read part 1, you’ve seen this chart. If not, take five and go give it a read. For this second part, we’re going to…
Part I: Why the SPD has made way for Die Grüne
Nerd alert: This is the first article of a two-part series. It is a bit more heavy on the statistical vocabulary than other posts on this blog. You have been warned. The downfall of the SPD The chart above explains one of the most important developments in German politics over the past 27 years. Read on because it’s going to…
Candidates don’t matter (much)
In my post from March, I boldly (read: foolishly) staked my claim about how I think the German election will go down. My take hasn’t really changed all that much, though there has been a significant shift in the polling numbers in favor of Die Grüne and away from the CDU/CSU. Time will tell whether the Greens can keep their…
Should Germany care more about polling?
This blog is about polls and forecasting, so what do you think my answer will be to this question? Should Germany care more about polling? Yes, it should, but it should care less about individual polls and more about the aggregate. In this post, I’ll take you through what to be wary of when it comes to individual polls, how…
How Germany will (likely) vote in 2021
I couldn’t have picked a worse year to publish a prediction model for German politics. There’s a global pandemic that continues to produce economic and social contexts that are without historic precedent (and precedent is important in predictions) and it’s the first election in 16 years in which Angela Merkel is not running for chancellor. These two factors are turning…