People firstly care about migration, Ukraine war, things around energy, and secondly culture war topics. At least in my country, that stuff dominated the debates. (Especially the Ukraine war support.)
People don't care that much about chat control, GDPR, cookie laws, file sharing (the original Pirate topic), or even USB ports on iPhones. They do care but not that much to vote for them.
Which I find hugely amazing since it's a boogeyman for other actual problems.
Here the migrants are "taking our houses", but if you look at the actual statistics it's not even a drop in the ocean (there are some local variances but nothing significant). The main culprit is 15 years of no significant construction and hand waiving by those who already bought a house.
It is self evidently true that the demand for housing migration creates increases prices and reduces availability for housing. Regardless what you think about migration policies, denying such an obviously true statement makes you look ridiculous.
What? They live in the same type of building I live in. Their rent is paid by the government if they can't pay themselves. Have you never been to a major German city? Visit any part of the city which isn't for millionaires only and you will find it inhabited by locals and migrants. You are completely delusional if you think otherwise.
>and the city economy would shrink too and then you'd complain about that...
This is irrelevant to the economics of housing. Migrants drive up housing costs, that is the most basic economics.