There is "still a lot of movement in there," said Lars Klingbeil, the SPD chairman, a week ago at an election campaign appearance on his party's prospects this Sunday.

It's a sentence that election campaigners utter in a rather desperate situation to encourage themselves.

In the past few days, however, there has been no sign of anything moving for the SPD in Schleswig-Holstein, at least not in the desired direction, i.e. upwards.

In the last polls, social democracy in the far north was between 18 and 20 percent.

For the comrades, that was a sobering 20 percentage points behind the CDU led by Prime Minister Daniel Günther.

Markus Wehner

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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It gets even worse on Sunday: The SPD, which at times seemed to have secured second place according to the polls, even falls behind the Greens.

The efforts of prominent Social Democrats, who headed north for the final stretch of the election campaign, were aimed at at least preventing this setback.

Apparently that didn't work.

According to the first projection, the SPD ends up at a good 15.5 percent, the Greens at around 18 percent.

Even before the election Sunday it was certain: Klingbeil's declaration of war after winning the federal election last year, that the SPD now wants to be the strongest force in all four state elections in 2022, would not come true.

Six weeks ago in the elections in Saarland, the party and its top candidate Anke Rehlinger were able to celebrate a brilliant victory.

The Social Democrats even won the absolute majority, Rehlinger clearly defeated incumbent Tobias Hans from the CDU.

Now the party in Schleswig-Holstein has suffered a bitter defeat, it has the historically worst result since the end of the Second World War.

The SPD also experienced good times in the second smallest federal state: since the Barschel affair from 1988 onwards, the social democracy has always been ahead of the CDU in five state elections, first with Björn Engholm, who won the absolute majority in 1988 with 54.8 percent, then with Heide Simonis at the head of the state government.

From 2005 the CDU won again, but in 2012 the gap in front of the Social Democrats was so small at 0.4 percentage points that the SPD man Torsten Albig was able to govern together with the Greens.

In the last state election in 2017, it was still enough for 27.2 percent, the comrades ended up almost five percentage points behind the Union.

Two simple reasons

In the Willy-Brandt-Haus, the SPD headquarters in Berlin, one sees two simple reasons for this: the opponent was too popular, one's own man too unknown.

In fact, Daniel Günther is Germany's most popular prime minister;

an "extremely popular" candidate, as SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert said on Sunday evening.

Party leader Saskia Esken speaks of a "bitter result".

She also points out: “In the end, the main role in the voting decision played the confirmation of the very popular prime minister in office.

The SPD candidate Thomas Losse-Müller was hardly able to raise his profile, although he had been proposed early on by the state and parliamentary group leader Serpil Midyatli.

Former state chairman Ralf Stegner speaks of a “debacle”.

Because the SPD remained weak

she now also lacks the desired power option: a traffic light coalition.

She does not have a majority in Kiel after the election.

Since Losse-Müller's candidacy was announced ten months ago - at that time the SPD was 15 percent in polls in the north - the situation for the Social Democrats had hardly improved.

The federal SPD can therefore point out that the policy of the traffic light coalition in the federal government and the actions of Chancellor Olaf Scholz should not have been decisive for the election defeat.

The fact that the chancellor's personal popularity has recently suffered badly hasn't helped the SPD campaigners between the North and Baltic Seas either.

There was no tailwind from Berlin or even a Scholz bonus.

The example of the Greens shows that federal politics can very well have an impact on a state election.

The Green Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck, who comes from Schleswig-Holstein, was apparently so convincing with his crisis management during the war in Ukraine that he was able to help his party to gain in the north.

This is a bitter experience for the SPD and Scholz.

If, in a week's time, the SPD also fails to win the election in North Rhine-Westphalia, which is so much more important in terms of federal politics, then a debate could arise as to whether the chancellor, with his poor communication, is partly to blame for the failure.

Kühnert emphasizes on Sunday that there is “a completely open race” in NRW.

The AfD flies out of the state parliament

As in previous elections, the SPD did not benefit from the Left Party's weakness.

Their national political misery, most recently characterized by the resignation of federal chairwoman Susanne Hennig-Wellsow and allegations of sexism in several state associations, cannot be stopped in the state elections on Sunday.

The left fails at the five percent hurdle, even more so than five years ago.

For the AfD, which is still in the double digits in federal polls, after 5.9 percent five years ago, it could be tight this time with entry into the Kiel state parliament.

It would be the first time that she would be voted out of a parliament - and thus a clear turning point.

For the comrades from the Chancellor's Party, it would probably be the only reason to be happy on Sunday.