"Hesse was always in short supply": this sentence is currently heard constantly in Wiesbaden, Kassel and Frankfurt. And it is true: in the federal state, which governed the SPD until 1999 almost throughout and in which the CDU since then the prime minister, there were always scarce majorities.
What has changed, however: The old camps, the clear right-to-left scheme no longer exists.
Hardly anywhere were the Greens and the CDU so hostile than in Hesse. On the one hand the former Spontis to Joschka Fischer, on the other the Hessian Stahlhelm wing of the CDU to Alfred Dregger.
And now? The Greens have been governing in Hesse with the CDU for five years. And even seem to benefit from it.
However, they do not rule out a renewed change: According to all surveys, there could be several, theoretically possible three-way constellations on Sunday: a Jamaican alliance of CDU, Greens and FDP. Or a traffic light coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP. Or red-red-green or green-red-red.
Hessian conditions: This term describes a situation in which there is no clear majority after an election:
- SPD Prime Minister Holger Börner experienced this in 1983, when he ruled for a quarter of a year in a managing role, before allowing himself to be tolerated by the Greens. Only in 1985 did Red-Green form a coalition - the first of its kind in the history of the Federal Republic. One image remained: Joschka Fischer is sworn in as a minister in sneakers in front of the state parliament.
- Then the Ypsilanti disaster of 2008. The then SPD's top candidate Andrea Ypsilanti had excluded in the election campaign, a cooperation with the Left Party - and they sought after the election yet. Their goal: red-green with toleration of the left. Hessian conditions prevailed again, for almost ten months no government formation was possible, CDU Prime Minister Roland Koch continued to executive. Shortly before her election then deprived of four SPD MPs Ypsilanti support. It was followed by new elections. Koch was able to continue and later handed over to Volker Bouffier.
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From this debacle all parties have learned in Hesse. Except for coalitions with the AfD nothing more is excluded. And also the sound has changed noticeably.
"Ypsilanti, Al-Wazir and the Communists stop": With this poster, the CDU served ten years ago xenophobic resentment. Greens and the SPD, in turn, regarded the Christian Democrats as archenemies - Koch was the hardliner to them, the cold-blooded polarizer, the evil boy.
Green top candidate Tarek Al-Wazir even refused him during the election campaign even the handshake.
And today? Koch's successor Bouffier gets on well with Al-Wazir. The Greens have moved into the middle, the CDU has modernized. Bouffier already sent in his first election to the Prime Minister in August 2010 signals of relaxation towards the green. At first they were irritated, but were finally convinced and agreed to form an alliance with the man who, as interior minister, was still considered to be particularly conservative, and thus a "black sheriff".
Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, on the other hand, managed to make the Social Democrats a serious challenger despite the continuing crisis at the federal level. Without putting on riot and personal attacks.
Even dealing with the Left Party has relaxed. Although the Ypsilanti trauma is still felt by all three parties involved. Nevertheless, it is clear: The left has become more pragmatic after ten years in the state parliament, the content overlaps with SPD and Greens are there.
Voice # 71 - Green soar: So the protest party became the election winner 
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For the election campaign this meant that there were no big, no emotionally charged topics. Instead of refugees, people talked about rising rents, road construction, Kitage fees and school policy.
Compared to earlier election campaigns that was rather: boring. Nevertheless, the new Hessian conditions are not a bad development. There is a new objectivity.
The respectful treatment of top politicians does not mean that their positions do not differ. Especially the CDU and the SPD differ in content in so many ways that a grand coalition is considered the most unlikely variant.
But that does not have to be bad news.
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The polling institute Civey works with a multi-level fully automated procedure. All representative real-time surveys are played in a nationwide network of more than 20,000 websites ("Riversampling"), so it is not only users of SPIEGEL ONLINE interviewed. Anyone can take part in the surveys online and will be considered with their answers in the representative result if they have registered. From these users, Civey draws a quoted sample that ensures that it matches the population, for example, in terms of age, gender and population density. Finally, in a third step, the results are weighted according to other socio-demographic factors and attendees' values in order to correct distortions and prevent manipulation. More information can be found in the Civey FAQ.
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Opinion polls are usually conducted by phone or online. The significance of the results depends on how many people can be reached and how many actually participate in a survey when they are approached. Internet connections and landline connections are currently about equally widespread in Germany - with around 90 percent of households, mobile phones even as high as 95 percent. The willingness to participate in all methods in the single-digit percentage range, especially experts estimate it for telephone surveys.
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At this point, readers in the app and on the mobile / stationary website have the opportunity to participate in a representative Civey survey. Civey is an online polling institute based in Berlin. To collect its representative surveys, the software of the company, which was founded in 2015, links websites to a nationwide survey network. In addition to SPIEGEL ONLINE include, among others, the "Tagesspiegel", "World", "Wirtschaftswoche" and "Rheinische Post". Civey was funded by the ProFit funding program of Investitionsbank Berlin and the European Regional Development Fund.