2025 Viennese state election

The 2025 Viennese state election was held to elect the members of the Gemeinderat and Landtag of Vienna on 27 April 2025.^[1]

Background

In the 2020 state election, the SPÖ under mayor Michael Ludwig was able to improve its 2015 result after the downward trend of the last elections and again became the strongest party with 41.6%. The Greens under Birgit Hebein also improved and achieved their best result so far in Vienna with 14.8%. The NEOS under Christoph Wiederkehr also recorded small gains and reached 7.5%. After suffering its worst result ever in 2015, the ÖVP was now able to more than double its share of the vote and received 20.4%; their lead candidate was former Federal Finance Minister Gernot Blümel. The FPÖ under Dominik Nepp lost more than two thirds of its vote share and reached 7.1%, its worst result since the state and municipal elections in 1983. The newly founded Team HC Strache – Alliance for Austria received 3.3% of the vote, which was below the electoral threshold, and thus failed to get any seats, as did the small parties LINKS with 2.1%, the Beer Party with 1.8%, and SÖZ with 1.2%. Other small parties played no significant role.^[2]

In 2020, a total of 1,133,010 people were eligible to vote, of whom 597,027 were women and 535,983 men.^[3] Voter turnout fell sharply to 65.27%, but this was still a higher turnout than in the 2005 state election, which had the lowest voter turnout to date with 60.81%.

The share of absentee votes that ended up being counted reached a new high of 28.34% among all eligible voters in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, meaning that more than 43 percent of all votes cast were by absentee ballot.^[4]

After exploratory talks between the mayoral party SPÖ with the ÖVP, the Greens and NEOS, the SPÖ surprisingly decided to start coalition negotiations with the NEOS instead of the previous coalition partner, the Greens.^[5] A coalition with the ÖVP was rejected due to little agreement on topics.^[6] A coalition with the FPÖ was rejected outright by the SPÖ.^[7]

On 16 November 2020, the first contents of the new coalition agreement were presented.^[8] On 24 November 2020, Michael Ludwig (SPÖ) was re-elected as mayor with 60 out of 100 votes – 54 of them from the new coalition – and the new city government was sworn in by Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen.^[9]

A 5% threshold applies to state and municipal elections in Vienna. In the past, the NEOS have campaigned for lowering it to 3%.^[10]

Statistics

A total of 1,109,936 Austrian citizens who are at least 16 years old on election day will be eligible to vote, a slight decrease from the 1,133,010 in the previous state election in 2020. The number of voting-eligible Austrian citizens is declining for years, despite Vienna growing by more than 110,000 people between 2020 and 2025, in large parts because of non-citizen immigrants. The voting-eligible citizen population is declining because of more deaths than births among citizens and a negative migration balance to other Austrian states and countries, which is not compensated by enough naturalisations of non-citizens. 36% of Viennese older than 16 are not eligible to vote in the election due to lack of Austrian citizenship.

A total of 265,328 absentee ballots were issued for the election, or 23.9% of eligible voters. The number is much smaller than absentee ballots requested for the 2020 election, because of the Coronavirus pandemic at the time - and therefore cannot be compared. It can be compared however to the Austrian legislative election in 2024 in Vienna, when 288,156 absentee ballots were issued in Vienna to eligible Austrian voters living in the city (excl. Austrians abroad) - or 25.9% of eligible Austrian voters living in Vienna.^[11]

Contesting parties

The table below lists parties represented in the current Gemeinderat and Landtag.

The following additional parties/lists will appear on the ballot in all 17 constituencies:^[12]

1. KPÖ und LINKS - Kommunistische Partei Österreichs und LINKS Wien - (short ballot abbreviation: KPÖ)
2. Team HC Strache - Allianz für Österreich - (short ballot abbreviation: HC)

The following additional parties/lists will appear on the ballot only in some of the 17 constituencies:

1. Soziales Österreich der Zukunft - (short ballot abbreviation: SÖZ) - (in 14/17 constituencies)
2. Pro 23 für ein lebenswertes und zukunftsfittes Liesing - (short ballot abbreviation: PRO) - (in 1/17 constituencies)
3. Plattform Obdachlos - Armut - Arbeitslos - Teuerung - (short ballot abbreviation: HERZ) - (in 1/17 constituencies)

Opinion polling

Recent opinion polling

The poll aggregator Europe Elects lists INSA, Market, Market/Lazarsfeld, Peter Hajek Public Opinion Strategies, Foresight Research Hofinger GmbH, Spectra, Unique Research GmbH, IFDD, DEMOX, OGM, GfK, IMAS, Triple M Matzka and IMAD in its database as reliable pollsters in Austria.^[13]

An unscientific, non-representative mock vote of both people who have Austrian citizenship and don't have Austrian citizenship (and therefore can't vote in the Viennese election) found that 47.7% would vote for SPÖ, 19.3% for the Greens, 14.3% for KPÖ, 8.1% for FPÖ, 5.2% for ÖVP, 4.7% for NEOS, and 0.7% for HC. About 60 percent of the 9.797 people voting in the unscientific, non-representative mock vote had Austrian citizenship. This so-called "passport doesn't matter"-poll was organized by the human rights NGO "SOS Mitmensch".^[15][16]

Older opinion polling

Projected turnout

• 68 % (stating that "I will certainly vote.") - ORF/Foresight
• 70 % (stating that "I will certainly vote.") - oe24.at/Market-Lazarsfeld

Sources: https://wien.orf.at/stories/3302404/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHjfFoRSRJs

Notes

1. ^ as LINKS
2. ^ HC: 3 %
3. ^ HC: 3.3 %

References

1. ^ "Bombshell: Vienna Election to Take Place on April 27th". vienna.at. 2025-01-17. Retrieved 2025-01-17.
2. ^ "Vienna Overview" (in German). Retrieved 2023-03-22.
3. ^ "Vienna Election 2020: 1,494 polling stations for 1,362,789 voters" (in German). Retrieved 2023-03-22.
4. ^ "Vienna Overview Postal Voting" (in German). Retrieved 2023-03-22.
5. ^ "Viennese SPÖ enters into coalition negotiations with Neos" (in German). 2020-10-27. Retrieved 2023-03-22.
6. ^ "After exploratory talks: De facto rejection of red-turquoise in Vienna" (in German). 2020-10-21. Retrieved 2023-03-22.
7. ^ "Choice of partner with consequences for the Confederation" (in German). 2020-11-16. Retrieved 2023-03-22.
8. ^ "Red-pink coalition presents first content" (in German). 2020-10-13. Retrieved 2023-03-22.
9. ^ "New city government is sworn in" (in German). Archived 2020-11-24 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2023-03-22.
10. ^ "Neos want to lower barrier clause for Vienna City Council" (in German). 2015-12-02. Retrieved 2023-03-22.
11. ^ "Wiener Gemeinderats- und Bezirksvertretungswahlen 2025" (in German). 2025-04-26. Retrieved 2025-04-26.
12. ^ "Wien-Wahl 2025: Wahlvorschläge wurden eingebracht" (in German). Presseservice der Stadt Wien. 2025-02-28. Retrieved 2025-03-03.
13. ^ "Truth in Polling". Europe Elects. Europe Elects. Retrieved 23 April 2025.
14. ^ "Vienna polls, @Wahlen_AT" (in German). Retrieved 2025-01-25.
15. ^ "Who would win the Vienna elections if foreigners were allowed to vote?". The Local Austria. 2025-04-24. Retrieved 2025-04-25.
16. ^ "Rekord: Beteiligung an Wiener Pass Egal Wahl vervierfacht!". www.sosmitmensch.at. Retrieved 2025-04-25.