Voter migration in NRW: where the many votes for the Greens come from

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Photo: DER SPIEGEL

Hendrik Wüst and the CDU may have won the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, but Monika Neubaur and her Green Party can cheer the loudest: They are making double-digit gains and there will be no getting around them when it comes to forming a government.

An initial analysis of voter migration by Infratest dimap shows where the many new Green Party voters came from.

The election research institute creates the hike based on its own surveys, the provisional final result and other official statistics.

The values ​​are a rough estimate of how many voters a party was able to retain compared to the previous election and how many migrated to and from other parties.

According to the analysis, the

snatched votes from the entire political competition: 260,000 votes from the Social Democrats, from the camp of the previous government partners CDU and FDP, 140,000 and 100,000 respectively switched to the Greens.

Overall, the

can slightly improve its result – above all at the expense of the previous coalition partner.

The Christian Democrats took 260,000 votes from the FDP.

At the same time, however, Hendrik Wüst's party lost 140,000 votes to the Greens and 190,000 to the non-voter camp.

The evening did not go well for Thomas Kutschaty and his

310,000 people who voted for the SPD in 2017 no longer went to the polls, 30,000 votes went to the CDU.

Only against the FDP is the balance of the SPD positive with 60,000 votes.

The big loser of the election is the

The Liberals not only voted for their previous coalition partner, the CDU.

130,000 people who voted for the FDP in 2017 did not vote this year.

The FDP also lost 100,000 voters to the Greens.

Despite losing votes, the

managed to re-enter the state parliament.

She lost 160,000 votes to the non-voter camp.

Old ones choose black, young ones green

The analysis by age group shows that the CDU has been particularly successful with older people.

In the over 70 age group, she got half of the votes.

The younger the voters, the weaker the Christian Democrats performed.

Among the youngest voters aged 18 to 24, they received only 19 percent.

In this group, the Greens prevailed as the strongest force with 28 percent.

The eco-party does worse for older people.

The FDP also achieved its best results among young voters.

Like the CDU, the SPD received more votes among older people.

CDU successful in all educational groups

The analysis also shows that the CDU is the strongest party among people with a high level of education at 33 percent.

In the case of people with a simple education, the proportion was even larger at 39 percent - here the party is almost on par with the SPD (40 percent).

The Greens showed a pattern that is now familiar: the party scored particularly well with the higher educated.

At 25 percent, they are the second strongest force in this group.

Among the simply educated, the Greens received only seven percent of the votes.

The voting behavior of men and women hardly differed.

Only AfD and FDP did slightly better for men than for women.