National Council election 2024

Preferential votes: Gewessler ahead of Kogler, Kickl first

FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl received the most preferential votes of the federal list candidates in the National Council election on September 29. With 85,542 votes, he was well ahead of ÖVP top candidate Karl Nehammer with 60,402 votes. The Green Party's top candidate Werner Kogler was ousted from his place on the list with only 7,569 votes (10th place), as Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler received 31,244 votes, thus surpassing the 7 percent hurdle required to be ranked first.

Gewessler, who has repeatedly been touted as Kogler's successor at the head of the Green Party, was able to convince 7.8 percent of Green voters to vote for her. According to the list of preferential votes published by the electoral authorities on Wednesday afternoon, she came fourth on the federal list behind Kickl, Nehammer and SPÖ leader Andreas Babler.

Zadic also ahead of Kogler
Only 1.88 percent of Green voters voted for Kogler. And Justice Minister Alma Zadić also did better than Kogler with 10,034 preferential votes - that meant sixth place for the head of department (or 2.5 percent of the Green electorate).

Leonore Gewessler is already being touted as Kogler's successor at the head of the Green Party.(Bild: APA/ROLAND SCHLAGER)

SPÖ leader Babler achieved 46,440 preferential votes (3rd place), NEOS top candidate Beate Meinl-Reisinger came in at 15,880 (5th place). FPÖ candidate and former Federal Councillor Christoph Steiner (9,385/place 7) (who was only ranked 77th on the FPÖ federal list) also achieved more votes than Kogler, as did Sepp Schellhorn (7,852/place 8), who was ranked third on the NEOS federal list, and State Secretary Claudia Plakolm (ÖVP) with 7,820 votes (place 9).

Kickl failed to reach the seven percent mark
With 85,542 votes (6.07 percent of the blue votes), FPÖ leader Kickl did not make it past the seven percent needed to be placed first. However, as he was first on the list anyway, this does not matter. ÖVP leader Nehammer received a preferential vote from 4.71 percent of ÖVP voters, Babler from 4.5 percent of SPÖ voters. For the NEOS top candidate, 3.56 of the pink voters cast a preferential vote.

Kickl did not come close to the high number of preferential votes of the 2019 election winner, former ÖVP leader Sebastian Kurz: Kurz achieved 155,803 preferential votes (8.71% of ÖVP voters at the time). Of course, the ÖVP did significantly better overall in 2019 with 37.46% than in this year's election with 26.27% and also clearly better than the current election winner, the FPÖ, which achieved 28.85% of the vote on September 29. Kickl himself received 75,699 preferential votes in 2019 - at that time as FPÖ runner-up.

This year, Kickl scored the most of his preferential votes in Lower Austria with 22,574, followed by Vienna (13,895), Styria (12,511) and Upper Austria (10,923).