# 2019 Styrian state election

The 2019 Styrian state election was held on 24 November 2019 to elect the members of the Landtag of Styria.
The conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) was the clear winner of the election, winning 36.0% on a swing of 7.6 percentage points. This came to the detriment of the former largest party, the centre-left Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), which lost six points and fell to second place. The Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) fell by nine points. The Greens made a strong showing, winning 12% and doubling their representation to six seats. The Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) achieved their best result since re-entering the Landtag in 2005 with 6.0%. NEOS – The New Austria (NEOS) doubled its voteshare from the 2015 election, winning 5.4%, and entered the Landtag with two seats.
The outgoing government, a coalition of the SPÖ and ÖVP, was unusual in that it was headed by a member of the smaller party – Hermann Schützenhöfer of the ÖVP. With his party's success in the election, he was re-elected Governor by the Landtag at the head of a renewed ÖVP–SPÖ coalition.

## Background

In the 2015 election, the SPÖ–ÖVP government suffered major losses (–9.0 and –8.7 points respectively) to the FPÖ (+16.1 points), with all three parties finishing within a 2.5 percentage point margin of one another. Afterwards, in line with a promise to step down if the SPÖ fell below 30% of votes, Governor Franz Voves announced his resignation. With the SPÖ and ÖVP planning to continue their coalition, the larger SPÖ was expected to retain the governorship. However, after several days of negotiations, the government announced that Voves would be succeeded by ÖVP leader Hermann Schützenhöfer. This was received poorly by opposition parties and the federal SPÖ alike, who criticised it as a breach of political convention. The Styrian SPÖ claimed it had been done to prevent the ÖVP from defecting and forming a coalition with the FPÖ.
In May 2019, the Ibiza affair led to the collapse of the federal government between the ÖVP and FPÖ. The September 2019 federal election took place two months ahead of the Styrian election and saw substantial losses for the FPÖ and SPÖ, and gains for the ÖVP and Greens.

## Electoral system

The 48 seats of the Landtag of Styria are elected via open list proportional representation in a two-step process. 40 of the seats are distributed between four multi-member constituencies. For parties to receive any representation in the Landtag, they must win at least one seat in a constituency directly. Seats are distributed in constituencies according to the Hare quota, with eight leveling seats allocated using the D'Hondt method at the state level, to ensure overall proportionality between a party's vote share and its share of seats.

## Contesting parties

| Name | Name | Name | Ideology | Leader | 2015 result | 2015 result |
| Name | Name | Name | Ideology | Leader | Votes (%) | Seats |
| | SPÖ | Social Democratic Party of Austria Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs | Social democracy | Michael Schickhofer | 29.3% | 15 / 48 |
| | ÖVP | Austrian People's Party Österreichische Volkspartei | Christian democracy | Hermann Schützenhöfer | 28.5% | 14 / 48 |
| | FPÖ | Freedom Party of Austria Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs | Right-wing populism Euroscepticism | Mario Kunasek | 26.8% | 14 / 48 |
| | GRÜNE | The Greens – The Green Alternative Die Grünen – Die Grüne Alternative | Green politics | Sandra Krautwaschl | 6.7% | 3 / 48 |
| | KPÖ | Communist Party of Austria Kommunistische Partei Österreichs | Communism | Claudia Klimt-Weithaler | 4.2% | 2 / 48 |
| | NEOS | NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum NEOS – Das Neue Österreich und Liberales Forum | Liberalism Pro-Europeanism | Niko Swatek | 2.6% | 0 / 48 |

## Opinion polling

| Polling firm | Fieldwork date | Sample size | SPÖ | ÖVP | FPÖ | Grüne | KPÖ | NEOS | Others | Lead |
| 2019 state election | 24 November 2019 | – | 23.0 | 36.0 | 17.5 | 12.1 | 6.0 | 5.4 | – | 13.0 |
| Research Affairs | 8–14 Nov 2019 | 400 | 23 | 35 | 20 | 13 | 5 | 4 | – | 12 |
| Karmasin | 8–13 Nov 2019 | 700 | 22 | 35 | 20 | 13 | 6 | 4 | – | 13 |
| Market | 8–13 Nov 2019 | 774 | 25 | 32 | 18 | 13 | 5 | 7 | – | 7 |
| Research Affairs | 26–31 Oct 2019 | 400 | 21 | 36 | 21 | 13 | 4 | 5 | – | 15 |
| IMAS | 16–29 Oct 2019 | 800 | 25 | 33 | 21 | 12 | 4 | 5 | – | 8 |
| Unknown | 29 Oct 2019 | ? | 25 | 34 | 18 | 13 | 5 | 5 | – | 9 |
| OGM | 16–22 Oct 2019 | 746 | 21 | 35 | 20 | 12 | 5 | 5 | – | 14 |
| GMK | 13 Sep 2019 | ? | 27 | 33 | 22 | 8 | 5 | 5 | – | 6 |
| OGM | 3–6 Sep 2019 | 512 | 23 | 31 | 26 | 7 | 5 | 4 | – | 5 |
| OGM | 4 Aug 2019 | ? | 20 | 33 | 27 | 10 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 6 |
| Market | 28–31 Jan 2019 | 793 | 27 | 30 | 24 | 9 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| Brand Support | 13 Jan 2019 | ? | 24 | 34 | 25 | 7 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 9 |
| Krone | 18 Mar 2018 | 510 | 26 | 34 | 26 | 6 | 3 | 5 | – | 8 |
| OGM | 21 May 2016 | ? | 25 | 28 | 31 | 7 | 5 | – | 4 | 3 |
| 2015 state election | 31 May 2015 | – | 29.3 | 28.5 | 26.8 | 6.7 | 4.2 | 2.6 | 2.0 | 0.8 |

## Results

| | Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) | 217,036 | 36.05 | +7.60 | 18 | +4 |
| | Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) | 138,572 | 23.02 | –6.27 | 12 | –3 |
| | Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) | 105,294 | 17.49 | –9.27 | 8 | –6 |
| | The Greens – The Green Alternative (GRÜNE) | 72,749 | 12.08 | +5.40 | 6 | +3 |
| | Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) | 36,062 | 5.99 | +1.77 | 2 | ±0 |
| | NEOS – The New Austria (NEOS) | 32,346 | 5.37 | +2.73 | 2 | +2 |
| Invalid/blank votes | Invalid/blank votes | 4,469 | – | – | – | – |
| Total | Total | 606,528 | 100 | – | 48 | 0 |
| Registered voters/turnout | Registered voters/turnout | 955,795 | 63.46 | –4.44 | – | – |
| Source: Styrian Government |||||||
Popular vote
ÖVP
36.05%
SPÖ
23.02%
FPÖ
17.49%
GRÜNE
12.08%
KPÖ
5.99%
NEOS
5.37% :
Landtag seats
ÖVP
37.50%
SPÖ
25.00%
FPÖ
16.67%
GRÜNE
12.50%
KPÖ
4.17%
NEOS
4.17% :

### Results by constituency

| Constituency | ÖVP | ÖVP | SPÖ | SPÖ | FPÖ | FPÖ | Grüne | Grüne | KPÖ | KPÖ | NEOS | NEOS | Total seats | Turnout |
| Constituency | % | S | % | S | % | S | % | S | % | S | % | S | Total seats | Turnout |
| District 1 | 29.2 | 4 | 17.4 | 2 | 15.2 | 2 | 20.6 | 3 | 9.9 | 1 | 7.7 | 1 | 13 | 62.1 |
| District 2 | 47.2 | 5 | 18.8 | 2 | 19.0 | 2 | 8.5 | 1 | 2.6 | | 3.9 | | 10 | 67.0 |
| District 3 | 38.8 | 3 | 23.9 | 2 | 21.2 | 1 | 8.0 | | 3.7 | | 4.4 | | 6 | 62.8 |
| District 4 | 32.8 | 4 | 32.7 | 4 | 16.7 | 2 | 7.6 | 1 | 5.8 | | 4.5 | | 11 | 62.5 |
| State seats | | 2 | | 2 | | 1 | | 1 | | 1 | | 1 | 8 | |
| Total | 36.0 | 18 | 23.0 | 12 | 17.5 | 8 | 12.1 | 6 | 6.0 | 2 | 5.4 | 2 | 48 | 63.5 |
| Source: Styrian Government |||||||||||||||