Anger over migration

Discontent with the country’s two main parties and the government’s handling of the refugee crisis could hand Austria’s right-wing populist party a big win in an important state election Sunday.

Austria's nationalist Freedom Party could well become Upper Austria's second-strongest in the first election since the refugee crisis began. Polls see it winning nearly 30 percent of the vote, almost doubling its support from the last state election.

That could mean that support for the Austrian People's Party would dip below 40 percent the first time in 70 years. Although the conservatives will likely remain in power, they will need to find a new coalition partner. Upper Austria's election is seen as a harbinger of the October 11 vote in Vienna, which is both a state and a city. There, the Freedom Party could also see big gains.

"The Freedom Party is the go-to party for people who want to signal a protest," says Florian Perlot, a political scientist at Vienna's Institute for Statistical Analysis. "It's the party you vote for when you're unhappy."

Refugees as the main factor in the election

And, it appears, Austrians are not happy with the ongoing influx of refugees in spite of the warm welcome shown by many volunteers over the last few months.

More than 125,000 migrants have passed through the country this year and Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, has been a focal point. In May, the Red Cross erected a tent city in the middle of police sports fields here. By summer, the train station was used to temporarily house refugees. Now, after Germany suspended train service with Salzburg, the Linz to Passau route has become the new passage.

"Something has to change," says Tamara Kirchberger as she walked her dog with her daughter Thursday morning. "Politicians aren't listening. There's no border control, no order."

Longstanding Freedom Party issue

According to the latest Gallup poll, Upper Austria's ruling conservative People's Party is seen as the big loser, even though the governor, Josef Puehringer, personally has a 76 percent approval rate among voters.

He appears to be overshadowed by the Freedom Party's top candidate Manfred Haimbuchner, who has plastered the countryside with posters promising "security instead of open borders." In Linz, the Freedom Party warns of "asylum chaos and Islamization."

"The Freedom Party owns this issue," analyst Perlot says. They are loud and offer radical solutions that are simple to understand - like building a border fence - so it's easier to appeal to voters, he adds.

Discontent with the establishment

On the other hand, Perlot says that even before the refugee crisis boiled over, discontent with the main parties ran high. Unemployment, still the sixth-lowest in the EU, is beginning to climb. The education system remains in need of reform with no solutions in sight. And there is the creeping budget deficit.

"Who's going to pay for this? We are," says Franky, a postman, as he waves his hand at the hall where refugees are housed. "What's going to be left for us? For pensions? For health insurance? What will our country look like? It's unmanageable."

Inside the hall, 30-year-old Doris is wearing a white and red Team Austria vest indicating she is with the Red Cross. Only about 40 refugees are currently in the waiting area, so it's quiet, for now. She says she believed the hype surrounding the migrants was overblown. If you aren't around the train station, you don't even know they are here, she says.

And yes, she says, she will be voting. Although she won't say for whom, she adds "in any case not for the Freedom Party."

Social Democrats could fall below 20 percent

If polls are accurate, the ruling coalition of the People's Party and the Greens will not have a majority. The biggest loser is the OeVP, which is seen to have about 37 percent support, a drop of nearly 10 percent. The Greens appear to remain steady at around 10 percent. Gallup predicts the Social Democrats will receive about 19 percent of the vote, or 6 percent less than on the last election.

Elisabeth Schiefthaler says overall she was pleased with the governor, but the refugee issue was dividing families. "Too many dumb people are scared of strangers, of foreigners, that their money will be taken," she says.

And she fears outsiders' reactions if the Freedom Party wins. "People will say Austria is where it was one other time. I see a danger in that."