Party stronghold

As a party stronghold places constituencies, constituencies or regions are referred to, in which the respective political party has repeatedly especially get high share of the vote. This is by the party tradition by certain voters , by regular voters who live mainly in the region or to establish other circumstances.

Germany

Examples of constant party strongholds in Germany:

• Baden-Württemberg :

The CDU had a prominent position here for decades, especially in the rural parts of the country in the southeast ( Upper Swabia ) and northeast ( Franconia ). The middle part of the state is considered a stronghold of the FDP , which even provided the Prime Minister in the 1950s. The SPD has always dominated the north of Mannheim , but was replaced in 2016 by the AfD , which also took a direct mandate from the CDU in Pforzheim . The Greens are particularly well represented in university cities. In Tübingen they provide the mayor. In the state elections in 2011 they achieved 24.2% and since then, Winfried Kretschmann, is the first prime minister in Germany. Since January 7, 2013, the state capital Stuttgart has also been ruled by a green mayor.

• Bavaria :

In Bavaria , the CSU is the strongest party in almost all electoral districts. It is particularly strong in the districts of Upper Bavaria , Lower Bavaria , Swabia and Lower Franconia . The SPD is much more strongly represented in Munich and Nuremberg , where it usually provides the mayor. The greens also do better there than elsewhere.

• Berlin :

Stronghold of the party Die Linke , especially in the eastern part of the city, which won all of its three direct seats in the 2005 Bundestag election and became the second strongest party in the 2006 parliamentary elections with 28.1% (at that time as Linkspartei.PDS ). In addition, the Greens have already received three direct mandates in federal elections there. They also achieved their best national result in the 2011 parliamentary elections with 17.6%. In the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district , the Greens achieved 35.5% in the 2011 election for the district assembly .

• Brandenburg :

Here the SPD regularly wins the federal and state elections.

• Bremen :

Since the Second World War, the country has been run by an SPD majority until the CDU gained a majority in 2019. However, after the agreement with the Greens and the Left on a coalition agreement, the SPD continues to provide the mayor. The Greens are also strong here.

• Hessen :

In addition to Baden-Württemberg second tract of land with continuously rather high Voting Shares for the Greens and the FDP , particularly in the Rhine-Main area . The northern part of the state is dominated by the SPD .

• Lower Saxony :

The CDU is in Emsland , in the district of Cloppenburg and Vechta County regularly to more than 50.0% of the vote, the SPD , however, achieved in the 2005 federal election in the constituency Aurich - Emden Germany 's best second vote results reached in 2009 but only 38.8 %. The Braunschweig area is generally regarded as an area with a high SPD election rate.

• North Rhine-Westphalia

The centrally located Ruhr area traditionally elects the SPD , in the rural regions in the south ( Eifel ), north ( Münsterland ) and in the south-east ( Sauerland and Siegerland ) the CDU dominates .

• Rhineland-Palatinate Until the beginning of the 1990s, the CDU had a predetermined position here, and since then the SPD has achieved a relative majority of votes in the state elections.
• Saarland :

Traditionally, the CDU is the strongest force in the state, especially in the St. Wendel district , where almost all cities and municipalities are governed by the CDU with an absolute majority. In the state elections in 2009 , Die Linke achieved by far their best result in a West German state with 21.3% of the vote.

• Saxony :

Saxony is a stronghold of the CDU , which, however , had to give up its absolute majority for the first time in the 2004 state elections , not least because of the high proportion of votes for the NPD , especially in the economically weaker eastern part of the state. In the 2013 federal election , the AfD in Saxony achieved the best result in this federal election with 6.8%, and in 2017 the AfD was the strongest party with 0.1%, ahead of the CDU. East Saxony in particular emerged as the stronghold of the AfD after the 2017 federal election and the 2019 European and state elections.

Strongholds by party (second votes)

All parties that received at least half a percent of the valid votes in the entire electoral area (hurdle for state party funding ) are listed.

Party strongholds in the 2017 federal election

Political party	Bundestag constituency	country	Second votes
AfD	Saxon Switzerland - Eastern Ore Mountains	Saxony	35.5%
CDU	Cloppenburg - Vechta	Lower Saxony	53.1%
CSU	Traunstein	Bavaria	44.6%
FDP	Düsseldorf I	North Rhine-Westphalia	19.7%
Free voters	Landshut	Bavaria	5.5%
Green	Freiburg	Baden-Württemberg	21.2%
The left	Berlin-Lichtenberg	Berlin	29.3%
The party	Berlin-Friedrichshain - Kreuzberg - Prenzlauer Berg East	Berlin	3.5%
SPD	Aurich - Emden	Lower Saxony	37.8%
Animal welfare party	Oberhavel - Havelland II	Brandenburg	2.0%

Party strongholds in the 2013 federal election

Political party	Bundestag constituency	country	Second votes
AfD	Goerlitz	Saxony	8.2%
CDU	Cloppenburg - Vechta	Lower Saxony	63.2%
CSU	Rottal Inn	Bavaria	58.8%
FDP	Düsseldorf I	North Rhine-Westphalia	9.2%
Free voters	Landshut	Bavaria	5.3%
Green	Berlin-Friedrichshain - Kreuzberg - Prenzlauer Berg East	Berlin	20.8%
left	Berlin-Lichtenberg	Berlin	34.6%
NPD	Saxon Switzerland - Eastern Ore Mountains	Saxony	5.1%
Pirates	Berlin-Friedrichshain - Kreuzberg - Prenzlauer Berg East	Berlin	5.8%
SPD	Gelsenkirchen	North Rhine-Westphalia	44.0%

Austria

All parties that received more than one percent of the valid votes in the entire electoral area (hurdle for one-time party funding ) are listed.

Party strongholds in the 2017 National Council election

Political party	Regional constituency	country	be right
FPÖ	West Styria	Styria	34.8%
GREEN	Vienna Inner West	Vienna	10.2%
NEOS	Vienna Inner West	Vienna	9.7%
ÖVP	East Tyrol	Tyrol	46.0%
MUSHROOM	Vienna Inner West	Vienna	10.4%
SPÖ	Vienna Inner East	Vienna	38.9%

Switzerland

Determining the party strongholds in Switzerland is much more difficult than determining the party strongholds in Germany and Austria. The elections of the National Council and the Council of States are hardly suitable for determining party preferences of the cantons , because some cantons only elect one member per chamber . In this regard, the elections of the cantonal parliaments are more informative. In some cantons, however, the distribution of seats in the cantonal parliaments is determined by majority elections, which means that no comparable results are available. Therefore, the party strongholds were determined in the following table by calculating the proportion of mandates won in relation to the total number of mandates. Only the Parliament (Grand Council) of Appenzell Innerrhoden , the canton with the lowest number of inhabitants, does not provide any information about the party affiliation of the members. All parties are listed that are represented in the Federal Assembly and that won at least one mandate in the last election of a cantonal parliament.

Party strongholds in the cantonal parliamentary elections

Political party	Canton	Mandates	Mandate share	Election year
BDP	Grisons	28 of 120	23.3%	2014
CSP OW	Obwalden	7 of 55	12.7%	2014
CVP	Valais	61 of 130	46.9%	2013
EPP	Bern	12 of 160	7.5%	2014
FDP	Appenzell Ausserrhoden	23 of 65	35.4%	2015
glp	Zurich	14 of 180	7.8%	2015
GPS	Basel city	14 of 100	14.0%	2016
Lega	Ticino	22 of 90	24.4%	2015
MCR	Geneva	20 out of 100	20.0%	2013
PdA	Neuchâtel	8 of 115	7.0%	2013
SP	Basel city	34 of 100	34.0%	2016
SVP	Schaffhausen	21 of 60	35.0%	2016

United States

See red states and blue states

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stefan Locke, Oppach: AfD stronghold: That scares them . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed May 24, 2020]).
2. ↑ The Federal Returning Officer : Tables: Final results by constituency of all federal elections ( ZIP file , 515 KB); Results of the parliamentary elections in 2017 in the file btw17_kerg.csv find
3. ↑ The Federal Returning Officer : Final constituency results ( Memento of the original from January 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Federal Ministry of the Interior: Austria - National Council election 2017
5. ↑ Federal Statistical Office, Center for Democracy Aarau: Cantonal parliamentary elections: distribution of mandates by party and canton ( XLS file , 661 KB)