Elections of the Federal President
of the Republic of Austria 2010

• Download charts election day survey (German, PDF)
• Download comprehensive election analysis (German, PDF)

Final result and postal vote

For this presidential election, 376.197 absentee ballot papers have been issued. The postal vote lead to small gains for Heinz Fischer:

Turnout : 53,6 % 

Analysis of the presidential elections

SORA analyzes the election on the basis of voter transition data as well as the ISA/SORA election day survey among 1.246 eligible voters. Important trends of this election are:

Incumbent President reelected with 79,3 %: Heinz Fischer, the incumbent Federal President of Austria, was reconfirmed in Sunday’s elections with 79,3 % of voters supporting him for a second term in office. Fischer mobilized slightly more voters than in the previous election in 2004. However, in 2010 the people’s party (ÖVP) did not nominate an own candidate and therefore the turnout rate (53,6 %) dropped significantly compared to the previous presidential election (71,6 %).

FP candidate Barbara Rosenkranz fails to reach out to the centre: The candidate of the Freedom Party (FPÖ) failed to mobilize voters from the centre and received only 15,2 % of the vote. With 481.923 votes she clearly remains behind the  FPs result in the national elections in 2008 (857.029). As the voter transition analysis shows, Rosenkranz did not appeal to voters of the conservative People's Party (ÖVP). But also from the Freedom Party voters of the 2008 national election 25% voted for Rosenkranz.

The campaign of Barbara Rosenkranz was shattered by heavy criticism of her lenient statements on the law against open support for National Socialism or Nazism (NS-Verbotsgesetz). Rosenkranz was charged for not distancing herself clearly from the Nazi past. She countered these attacks and declared to be deeply opposed to the national socialist ideology. However, in the polls she continued to lag behind her initial results. 

Table 1: Voter transitions for the 2010 presidential elections, absolute number of votes, in thousands (based on the preliminary result and forecast of postal vote)

Example: Of the SPÖ supporters of the national election 2008, 1,181.000 voted for Heinz Fischer, 60.000 voted for Barbara Rosenkranz, etc.

Table 2: Voter transitions for the 2010 presidential elections, in percentage (based on the preliminary result and forecast of postal vote)

Example: Of the SPÖ supporters of the national election 2008, 83 % voted for Heinz Fischer, 4 % voted for Barbara Rosenkranz, etc.