Today's regional elections in Saxony and Thuringia will not just have symbolic effects beyond their state borders. State governments are represented in the Bundesrat, which can veto federal legislation, while state parliaments play a role in the election of the German President.

Based on the exit polls, the German state election rolling vote share (vs five years ago): CDU: 30.8% (+0.2) SPD: 19.6% (-2.8) Grn: 16.2% (+2.8) AfD: 12.8% (+0.8) FDP: 5.2% (-2.5) FW: 4.5% (+1.6) Lnk: 4.0% (-2.4) BSW: 1.1% (New) Other: 5.7%

Another way of showing the rolling results, the sum of the most recent state election in each German state, vs five years ago (the cycle for most states).

CDU: Highest level since May 2019 SPD: Lowest level ever in Federal Republic FDP: Lowest level since March 2001 Greens: Lowest level since May 2022 Linke: Lowest level since June 1999 AfD: Highest level ever

The current rolling turnout here - for second-order elections - is 63%. I.e., higher than in the recent first-order UK general election.

How similar do voters perceive the main parties to be? Most similar according to Labour voters: Conservatives and Reform UK: 65% say they are similar Labour and Lib Dems: 42% Lib Dems and Greens: 40% According to Conservative voters: Lib Dems and Greens: 42% Conservatives and

I don't know why the BBC does opinion pieces when they're not really allowed to have opinions.

Nice for ministers to make their statements so easily pollable.

It's an interesting question in terms of British mandate theory. Technically, 'deliver economic stability with tough spending rules' is the first highlighted policy in the manifesto, but it is not one of Labour's 'five missions' and was not the focus of the campaign/their voters.

Only one in eight Britons think that party conferences look like interesting events Very interesting: 1% Fairly interesting: 12% Fairly uninteresting: 36% Very uninteresting: 40% yougov.co.uk/politics/artic…

Three (very) old proposals for House Of Lords reform copied from the Dod's Companion:-

Flow of the vote, 2019-24, based on data from the British Election Study. Only a few small changes from the provisional version. More analysis: bsky.app/profile/dyland…

How the flow of the vote of 2019 Con, Lab and LD voters varied by region. Notable variations: - 1 in 4 Scottish Tories switched to Labour - 1 in 6 southern Labour voters switched to Lib Dems - 1 in 5 London Labour voters moved to Greens or Others - Lib Dem retention rates

The flow of the vote over two decades, between the 2005 and 2024 elections.