Newspoll: 52-48 to Labor (open thread)

An anti-climactic return for Newspoll, despite the seemingly game-changing event of the tax cuts backflip.

The Australian reports the first Newspoll of the year shows no change to the status quo after the tax cuts backflip or anything else to have happened over the holiday period, with Labor retaining its 52-48 two-party lead from the mid-December poll. Only minor changes are recorded on the primary vote, with Labor up a point to 34%, the Coalition steady on 36%, the Greens down one to 12% and One Nation steady on 7%.

Questions on the tax cuts found 62% believed the government had done the right thing, but oddly only 38% felt they would be better off. Preferred prime minister is likewise unchanged at 46-35 in favour of Anthony Albanese, while at this stage we only have net results on the two leaders’ ratings: Albanese down a point to minus nine, Peter Dutton down four to minus 13. A number of gaps here should be filled when The Australian publishes full results tables.

The poll was conducted Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of 1245.

UPDATE: Albanese is steady on 42% approval and up one on disapproval to 51%, while Dutton is down two to 37% and up two to 50%. The 38% better off figure turns out to contrast with only 18% for worse off, with 37% opting for about the same and 7% uncommitted. The 62% support rating compared with 29% opposed and 9% uncommitted. Both questions emphasised that the changes would be to the advantage of lower and middle income earners.

Weekend miscellany: WA Liberal preselections, Queensland and SA by-elections (open thread)

A comeback lined up for a former WA Liberal Senator, plus candidates in place for state by-elections in Queensland and SA.

The biggest electoral news of the week was probably the annual release of electoral donations disclosures, which has been widely covered elsewhere. From the more narrow concerns of this site, there is the following:

• Ben Small, who served in the Senate from November 2020 to June 2022, has emerged as the only nominee for Liberal preselection in the regional Western Australian seat of Forrest. The seat will be vacated at the next election with the retirement of Nola Marino, who has held it safely for the Liberals since 2007. The West Australian also reports Mark Wales, an SAS veteran, Survivor winner and former McKinsey consultant, plans to nominate for Tangney, a normally comfortable Liberal seat that fell to Labor in 2022. Others known to be interested are Canning mayor Patrick Hall and IT consultant Harold Ong.

• The Liberal National Party has chosen its candidates for the looming Queensland state by-elections for the safe Labor seats of Inala and Ipswich West, respectively being vacated by Annastacia Palaszczuk and Jim Madden: Trang Yen, a 28-year-old public servant in the Department of State Development, and Darren Zanow, president of the Ipswich Show Society. The by-elections will be held concurrently with local government elections on March 16.

• With former South Australian Premier Steven Marshall saying he will formally resign from parliament “in the coming months”, the Liberals have preselected lawyer and former ministerial adviser Anna Finizio for the looming by-election for his seat of Dunstan, which once had the more instructive name of Norwood. Labor is again running with its candidate from March 2023, Cressida O’Hanlon, a family dispute resolution practitioner.

Miscellany: Essential Research on tax, Roy Morgan, by-election latest (new thread)

Half-cooked early indications on the tax cuts backflip produce mixed signals.

The first two polls after the government’s tax cuts backflip are out, though neither was conducted entirely after the new policy was announced on Thursday. The Essential Research poll, which was conducted Wednesday to Monday with a sample of 1201, is as yet lacking voting intention numbers, which will hopefully be along later today. As reported in The Guardian, the poll presented respondents with a description of the stage three tax cuts as originally proposed and a choice of four responses, with only 22% favouring that the cuts proceed unchanged, up two from November. Of the remainder, 47% preferred they be “revised so they mostly benefit those on low and middle incomes”, in line with the government’s new policy, up six; 19% favoured an option of delaying cuts for those on more than $200,000 until “economic conditions improve”, down three; and 13% opposed the cuts altogether, down three.

UPDATE: Essential Research’s voting intention numbers are Labor 32% (up one from mid-December), Coalition 34% (steady), Greens 13% (steady) and One Nation 7% (steady) with 5% undecided. Its 2PP+ measure has Labor leading 48-46, in from 49-46.

The weekly voting intention poll from Roy Morgan had only half its field work after the announcement, being conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1688. The two-party headline of 50.5-49.5 in favour of Labor is in from 52.5-47.5 last week, though that result was something of an outlier: the previous four polls, conducted from late November to early January with a week’s break for Christmas, were all in the range from 51-49 to 49-51. On the primary vote, Labor is down one-and-a-half to 31% and the Coalition is up by the same amount to 37.5%, with both the Greens and One Nation up half a point to 13.5% and 5% respectively.

Essential Research also asked about respondents’ personal financial circumstances, which reportedly showed improvement “over summer”, though I can’t find the earlier poll being compared to. Eleven per cent rated their circumstances as comfortable, 38% as secure (up seven), 39% as struggling a bit (down four), and 12% as in serious difficulty (down two). Regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict, 67% felt Australia should stay out entirely, up six since November, with a five point drop in support for “active assistance to Palestine” to 16% and a one point drop for Israel to 17%. A presumably related question on the ABC found an even 39% for and against the proposition that it was independent and unbiased. Support for a republic was at 42% and opposition at 35%; on Australia Day, 40% supported the status quo, 18% a separate new date, and 31% a new date in addition to the existing one.

In other news, yet another by-election is on the horizon after Labor MP Jim Madden announced his resignation from the Queensland state seat of Ipswich West. Like the by-election for Annastacia Palaszczuk’s seat of Inala, this will be held simultaneously with the local government elections on March 16, at which Madden will run as a candidate for Ipswich City Council. Madden had previously announced he would retire at the next election after a series of unwelcome headlines last year, including claims of bullying and harassment of electorate office staff. Labor had already preselected Wendy Bourne, a Right-aligned former staffer to Annastacia Palaszczuk, who was unopposed after the withdrawal of Neisha Traill, an official with the Left faction Electrical Trades Union.

US New Hampshire primary live

Donald Trump likely to easily defeat Nikki Haley in New Hampshire. Also covered: the February 14 Indonesian election.

Live Commentary

2:35pm Friday Biden finished with 63.9% in the Dem primary, with Phillips at 19.6% and “other write-ins” at 8.3%.

11:36am Thursday With almost all votes counted, Trump wins by 54.3-43.3, in line with the 11-point forecast from the NYT model. Turnout for the Republican primary was a New Hampshire record at 322,000, and compares with just 118,000 in the Democratic primary. In the Dem primary, Biden is on 55.8% and will reach about 65% once the remaining 10.1% of “unprocessed write-ins” are counted. Phillips was a distant second with 19.5%.

4:54pm I had an article about the New Hampshire results for The Conversation that also featured general election polls.

4:47pm Biden will easily win the Dem Feb 3 South Carolina primary and Feb 6 Nevada primary. I won’t cover the early Feb contests, but will be back for the Feb 13 US federal by-election in New York’s third, the Feb 14 Indonesian election and two Feb 15 UK by-elections in Conservative-held seats.

4:41pm The next Republican contest is Nevada, which holds a non-binding primary Feb 6 and a caucus Feb 8 that binds its 26 delegates. Candidates had to choose to nominate for either the caucus or primary. Haley is on the primary ballot, and Trump on the caucus ballot. Trump will win the delegates, but can Haley do OK in the primary? After that it’s South Carolina on Feb 24.

4:35pm With 87% counted, Trump leads by 54.5-43.6. According to exit polls, Trump won registered Republicans 74-25 (50% of electorate), but Haley won undeclared by 66-34 (46% of electorate). This huge vote for Haley from non-Republicans isn’t likely to apply in other states. It probably explains why polls overstated Trump’s NH margin.

2:50pm With 71% counted, Trump leads by 54.6-43.8, but the NYT forecast is still at Trump by 11.

2:14pm With 58% counted, Trump leads by 53.6-45.0. The NYT forecast is still Trump by 11.

1:16pm With 36% counted, Trump leads by 53.4-45.6. The NYT forecast is for a final result of Trump by 11.

12:30pm With 24% counted, Trump leads by 52.5-46.6. The NY Times forecast has a final 11-point margin predicted.

12:05pm With all NH polls now closed, Trump is the projected winner. The NY Times live forecast gives Trump a win by an estimated 12 point margin.

11:51am With 17% in, Trump’s lead is near double digits at 54.4-44.7.

11:31am With 10% in, Trump leads by 53-46. Dave Wasserman has called for Trump.

11:22am Trump now has a 51-48 lead over Haley in the Rep primary with 5% in.

11:20am In the Dem primary, “write-ins” (which will nearly all be for Biden) lead Dean Phillips by 73-24.

11:15am With 2% reporting, Haley leads Trump by 51-48.

8:54am Two late NH polls give Trump a 20-point and 22-point lead over Haley, causing the FiveThirtyEight aggregate to stretch to a 54-36 lead for Trump.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

The large majority of polls in New Hampshire close at 11am AEDT today. Polls in the 13 cities stay open until 12pm, and this will be the earliest time for a race call. The 22 NH Republican delegates are allocated proportionally with a 10% threshold. Information on US poll closing times and delegate allocation is from The Green Papers.

On Sunday US time, Ron DeSantis withdrew from the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump, leaving Nikki Haley as Trump’s sole challenger for the Republican nomination. DeSantis had been viewed as Trump’s main threat, but he had fallen from 34% in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate of national Republican polls in January 2023 to 11% when he withdrew, as Trump increased from 45% to 66%. Trump beat DeSantis in Iowa last week by almost 30 points.

Haley has only 12% in national Republican polls. Since Trump’s big win in Iowa, he has received many endorsements from prominent Republicans, and has a massive lead in endorsements according to FiveThirtyEight’s tracker.

In NH polls, Trump has surged since Iowa, and leads Haley by 52.3-36.7 in FiveThirtyEight. One poll gave Trump just a two-point lead, but the three most recent polls, which account for DeSantis’ exit, gave Trump 19-to-27-point leads.

The February 24 Republican primary in Haley’s home state of South Carolina is probably the last chance to stop Trump winning the Republican nomination, but Trump has a massive 61-25 lead over Haley in SC polls. SC is the first state to use a winner takes all/most formula for its Republican delegates. The 29 statewide delegates are awarded WTA, and the 21 congressional district delegates (three per district) are WTA by district.

For the Democratic primary, NH was reduced from 32 to ten Democratic delegates for holding its primary earlier than Democrats wanted. Owing to this rule breach, candidates were told to ignore NH, and Joe Biden is not on the ballot paper. However, Biden is using a “write-in” campaign, where voters write in someone’s name.

The first proper Democratic contest is the South Carolina primary on February 3, followed by the Nevada primary on February 6. Republican Nevada delegates will be allocated by a February 8 caucus, not a primary. Candidates could choose to be listed on either the primary or the caucus ballot. Trump is expected to have a huge win in the caucus.

In national Democratic primary polls, Biden has 72%, Marianne Williamson 5% and Dean Phillips 3%. Democratic delegates are allocated proportionally with a 15% threshold. Neither the Republican nor Democratic nominations are at all competitive.

On Super Tuesday March 5, many states will vote, and 41.6% of Democratic delegates and 47.4% of Republican delegates will be decided by this date. Trump and Biden are likely to effectively seal their parties’ nominations.

Indonesian election: February 14

Presidential and legislative elections will be held in Indonesia on February 14. Indonesia is in Australia’s region, and there are over 200 million registered voters. If no presidential candidate wins a majority, there will be a June 26 runoff. The 580 lower house seats are elected by proportional representation in multi-member electorates with a 4% national threshold. Senatorial candidates cannot be members of a political party. Four senators are elected per province for a total of 152.

Incumbent president Joko Widodo of the secularist and socially liberal Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) has served two five-year terms since his election in 2014. In the presidential election, Prabowo Subianto is the candidate of a religious and right-wing alliance, while Ganjar Pranowo represents the PDI-P and the third candidate is independent Anies Baswedan, the former governor of Jakarta.  

The polls imply Prabowo is the clear favourite, with most recent polls giving him 45-50% and two of the four most recent giving him over 50%, enough to win without a runoff. Gibran Rakabuming, the eldest child of Widodo, is Prabowo’s running mate.

Mid-week miscellany: Cook by-election, Morgan poll, SA redistribution (open thread)

Reports suggest the by-election for Scott Morrison’s seat of Cook is likely to be held in April, with a contested Liberal preselection looming.

A second federal by-election is now in the works after Scott Morrison announced his retirement from politics yesterday, adding to the pile of looming electoral events canvassed in the previous post:

• The Sydney Morning Herald reports the by-election for Scott Morrison’s seat of Cook could be held concurrently with the Dunkley by-election on March 2 if Morrison formalises his resignation this week, but Phillip Coorey of the Financial Review reports it will “not be held until April at the earliest”. Liberal sources quoted by Alexandra Smith of the Sydney Morning Herald said Sutherland Shire mayor Carmelo Pesce would nominate for preselection, with one factional moderate rating him a “shoo-in”. However, Simon Kennedy, who ran unsuccessfully for Bennelong in 2022, was also likely to run and would have backing from conservatives. Also mentioned was Gwen Cherne, “who works in veterans affairs”, and former Premier Mike Baird, though it seems entreaties to him are likely to fall on deaf ears.

• The weekly Roy Morgan federal poll has Labor’s two-party lead out from 51.5-48.5 to 52.5-47.5, from primary votes of Labor 32.5% (up one), Coalition 36% (down one), Greens 12.5% (up half) and One Nation 5% (up half). The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1675.

• The procedure for a South Australian state redistribution has commenced with the call for submissions, which are due by April 19. Draft boundaries are scheduled for publication on August 15, with finalisation to follow in November.

The road ahead: Dunkley, Inala and more

With dates set for a federal and a Queensland state by-election, a review of looming electoral events.

House of Representatives Speaker Milton Dick has announced the Dunkley by-election will be held on March 2, with nominations to close on February 8 and be decared the following day, and the Poll Bludger’s guide to the by-election is now up and running. It is the first of my guides to feature historical results charts for the primary vote as well as two-party preferred (among many other things), which I hope is of use to somebody because it involved a lot of work.

In a report on the by-election in The Age yesterday, David Crowe related that “this masthead reported last week that Labor officials privately believe the Coalition has the edge”. I am not clear if this refers to a report from Broede Carmody, saying only that the officials “expect a swing against them”, or one from Paul Sakkal saying “both parties are privately downplaying their chances”.

The other by-election on the way is in Queensland for Annastacia Palaszczuk’s safe Labor seat of Inala, which Premier Steven Miles has confirmed will be held simultaneously with the local government elections on March 16. Seemingly assured of Labor endorsement is Margie Nightingale, former teacher and policy adviser to Treasurer Cameron Dick, who has the support of the Right. Lydia Lynch of The Australian reports the Liberal National Party is “due to preselect its candidate within a fortnight” – I will hold off doing an election guide until then.

The council elections are of substantial interest in their own right, with Brisbane City Council in particular being both the most powerful and the most partisan local government jurisdiction in the country. The conservatives have been dominant since Campbell Newman became Lord Mayor in 2004. The current incumbent, Adrian Schrinner, won by 56.3-43.7 after preferences in 2020, a swing to Labor of 3.0% from 2016. His Labor opponent this time is Tracey Price, a lawyer and sewing shop owner.

The Liberal National Party’s dominance on council reached new heights with the elections of 2016 and 2020, both of which saw them win 19 out of 26 council wards, leaving five for Labor and one each for Greens and an independent. The Greens have high hopes of expanding their footprint after their federal breakthrough in 2022, to the extent of talking up the possibility of displacing Labor as the council opposition. Considerably more detail on the elections is available courtesy of Ben Raue at the Tally Room.

Also looming are Tasmania’s periodic Legislative Council elections, presumably to be held on May 4, which this year encompass two of the chamber’s fifteen seats: Prosser, covering rural territory immediately north of Hobart, and the self-explanatory seat of Hobart. These are of particular interest this year because former Greens leader Cassy O’Connor has abandoned her seat in the lower house to run for Hobart, which if successful will win the Greens its first ever seat in the chamber. The seat will be vacated with the retirement of Rob Valentine, who has held it as an independent since 2012. Prosser is held for the Liberals by Jane Howlett, one of the chamber’s four Liberal members, who won narrowly in 2018 and may struggle amid the government’s declining fortunes. Labor likewise holds four seats, the remaining seven being independents.

Friday miscellany: culture war edition (open thread)

Poll results on republicanism, Australia Day and boycotting Woolworths, plus Roy Morgan voting intention numbers and preselection latest.

Roy Morgan remains the only regularly reporting pollster to have returned for the year on voting intention, but Essential Research presumably isn’t far off. Past experience suggests it should be at least another week before Newspoll is back in the game. Which leaves us with:

UPDATE: There are now voting intention results for the YouGov poll mentioned below. Labor’s two-party lead is out to 52-48 from 51-49 in the final poll last year, from primary votes of Labor 32% (up three), Coalition 37% (steady), Greens 13% (down two), One Nation 7% (steady).

• This week’s Roy Morgan poll found Labor with a two-party lead of 51.5-48.5, after the Coalition led 51-49 upon the pollster’s return for the year a week ago. The primary votes were Labor 31.5% (up two-and-a-half), Coalition 37% (down two), Greens 12% (down one) and One Nation 4.5% (down half). The poll was conducted from a sample of 1727 last Monday to Sunday.

• Pollster DemosAU, which produced accurate polling on the Indigenous Voice referendum, has a poll showing strong support for a republic referendum in the next five years, but also that any given model for a republic will have a hard time ahead of it. On the former count, 47% said yes and 39% no, a notable contrast with Freshwater Strategy’s finding of 55% opposition to a referendum “now”. On the latter, “direct election with open nomination” trailed the status quo 38-41; “executive president/US model” trailed 35-43; “ARM ‘Australian choice’ model” trailed 32-45; the 1999 referendum proposal trailed 27-48; and the McGarvie model, for all its impeccable credentials, did worst of all at 27-49. The aforementioned are summaries of more detailed question wordings that can be found on the methodology statement. The poll was conducted January 8 to 12 from a sample of 1300.

• YouGov has an Australia Day themed poll finding 49% support for keeping the holiday as its present date, 21% for changing the date, and 30% favouring a “two-day public holiday that celebrates old and new”. Respondents were also which of three options was closest to their view concerning Peter Dutton’s call for a boycott of Woolworths and Big W: support for Dutton’s position, which scored 20%; support for Woolworths and Big W, which scored 14%; and “my main concern with supermarkets now is excessive price rises rather than this issue”, accounting for the remaining 66%. The poll was conducted Friday to Wednesday from a sample of 1532.

Other news:

Hayden Johnson of the Courier-Mail reports the by-election for Annastacia Palaszczuk’s seat of Inala simultaenously with Queensland’s local government elections on March 16, and that the Liberal National Party is expected to field a candidate for the safe Labor seat. Labor’s candidate is likely to be Margie Nightingale, former teacher and policy adviser to Treasurer Cameron Dick.

• Liberal preselection nominations have closed for Kooyong and Goldstein, where Josh Frydenberg and Tim Wilson were respectively defeated by teal independents in 2022. As previous reports indicated, Kooyong will be a four-way contest between Amelia Hamer, Susan Morris, Michael Flynn and Rochelle Pattison, with Hamer boasting the support of Frydenberg. In addition to Wilson and the previously reported Stephanie Hunt, the Goldstein preselection will also be contested by IPA research fellow Colleen Harkin. Rachel Baxendale of The Australian reports the preselections are likely to be held shortly after the Dunkley by-election.

Dan Jervis-Bardy of The West Australian reports Patrick Hill, Canning mayor and former police officer, and Howard Ong, a Singapore-born IT consultant, will seek Liberal preselection in Tangney, where the party suffered one of its worst defeats of the 2022 election at the hands of Labor’s Sam Lim. The report says the former member, Ben Morton, is understood to have ruled himself out. It also relates that Senator Michaelia Cash is marshalling support for Moore MP Ian Goodenough in the face of a preselection challenge from former Stirling MP Vince Connelly.

US Iowa Republican presidential caucus live

Live coverage of today’s Iowa caucus that Trump is expected to win easily. Also: a roundup of recent international electoral developments.

Live Commentary

4:10pm Ramaswamy has dropped out, so Trump, DeSantis and Haley are the final three standing with real support.

4:03pm Nearly final results are Trump 51.0%, DeSantis 21.2%, Haley 19.1% and Ramaswamy 7.7%. A great result for Trump. I’ll have a post on the New Hampshire primary next week.

2:55pm With 91% in, it’s Trump 51.0%, DeSantis 21.3%, Haley 19.0% and Ramaswamy 7.7%. The NYT forecast now has DeSantis finishing second. So a HUGE Trump win and no momentum for Haley probably means he’s going to win New Hampshire next week.

2:12pm The NYT has precinct maps showing there’s a big gap in Trump’s support by education and income, with higher-education and income areas less supportive. It’s the reverse pattern for Haley.

2:03pm With 39% reporting, it’s 52.8% Trump, 20.0% DeSantis, 18.7% Haley and 7.7% for Vivek Ramaswamy. The NYT prediction is Trump 51%, DeSantis 20%, Haley 19% and Ramaswamy 8%. DeSantis has a 57% chance to finish second.

1:34pm The NY Times live forecast has Haley ahead of DeSantis by an estimated 20% to 18% for second when all votes are counted. They give Haley a 57% chance to finish second.

1:14pm With 3% counted, Trump leads with 53%, followed by DeSantis at 21.5% and Haley at 17.6%. As expected, Trump wins Iowa.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

The Iowa Republican caucuses start at 12pm AEDT today. There will probably be some discussion before votes are taken. These caucuses will allocate 40 delegates by statewide proportional representation. While Iowa and some other states allocate their Republican delegates proportionally, many other states use a winner takes all or winner takes most method, with South Carolina on February 24 the first such state.

A “caucus” is managed by the state party, and often requires voters to gather at a particular time. A “primary” is managed by the state’s electoral authority, and is administered in the same way as a general election. Turnout at primaries is much higher than at caucuses. In 2024, the large majority of contests use primaries. Turnout in Iowa could be affected by frigid weather.

These contests elect delegates who will formally select their party’s presidential candidate at conventions in July (for Republicans) and August (Democrats). With Donald Trump and Joe Biden way ahead in polls, a rematch of the 2020 election is very likely. Both Biden and Trump are likely to effectively seal their parties’ nominations on Super Tuesday March 5 when many states vote.

The New Hampshire primary for both parties is next Tuesday January 23, but it was stripped of all its Democratic delegates for voting earlier than allowed under the Democrats’ rules. The first contest to bind Democratic delegates will be South Carolina on February 3.

In FiveThirtyEight aggregates, Trump is way ahead in Iowa with 51.3% followed by Nikki Haley at 17.3% and Ron DeSantis at 16.1%. It’s closer in New Hampshire with Trump leading Haley by 41.4-30.0. In national Republican primary polls, Trump has 60.4%, DeSantis 12.1% and Haley 11.7%.

Democratic delegates are allocated proportionally, but with a 15% threshold. Only Biden is likely to clear this threshold in most contests. He has 69.8% in national Democratic polls, Marianne Williamson 6.1% and Dean Phillips 3.5%.

Poland, Serbia, Chile, Switzerland and Germany

Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) party lost the October 15 election, but a new government was not sworn in until December 13 owing mainly to delays by the PiS-aligned president Andrzej Duda. The new governing coalition of liberal conservative Civic Platform, centrist Third Way and the Left won a confidence vote by 248-201. Duda can veto legislation and it takes a 60% majority to override his veto, which the non-PiS parties don’t have. The next presidential election is in 2025.

Snap parliamentary elections were held in Serbia on December 17. They were called early after authoritarian President Aleksandar Vučić’s SNS coalition did not win a majority in 2022 elections. The 250 parliamentarians were elected by national PR with a 3% threshold. The SNS won 129 seats (up nine), with an opposition coalition winning 65 seats (up 25). SNS won a majority.

On December 17, Chile rejected a right-wing constitution by a 55.8-44.2 margin. In September 2022, a left-wing constitution had been rejected by 61.9-38.1. The 1980 constitution that dictator Augusto Pinochet created continues to be in effect.

I previously covered the 2023 Swiss parliamentary elections. Rather than a single president or PM, Switzerland uses a seven-member federal council, which was elected by parliament on December 13. The composition was unchanged from 2019, with two from the right-wing SVP, two Social Democrats, two Liberals and one from the conservative Centre.

On December 19, Germany’s Constitutional Court ordered a February 11 rerun of the September 2021 German federal election in 455 of Berlin’s 2,256 polling booths. While a few seats are likely to change, the overall majority for the governing coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and pro-business Free Democrats is expected to be retained. But current national polls are bleak for the government, with the next election due by late 2025.