The far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, scored a historic landslide victory Sunday in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, according to exit polls and preliminary results, dealing a severe blow to Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives. It remained unclear, however, whether the result would give the party enough seats to form a government.
AfD won 44.5% of the vote, according to an exit poll by public broadcaster ARD, up from 20.8% in the 2021 state election. With more than half the ballots counted, its share was even higher, at about 48%, putting the party within reach of an outright majority.
Merz’s Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, fell to 18.5% in the exit poll from 37.1% in 2021, a dramatic collapse in a state where the conservatives have governed since 2002.
Most other parties have ruled out joining an AfD-led coalition under Germany’s political “firewall” against cooperation with the far right, meaning AfD would most likely need a parliamentary majority to take power.
The result exceeded even the strongest preelection forecasts for AfD.
“We focused on our state and did what we said we would do. We made history,” AfD’s 35-year-old state leader, Ulrich Siegmund, said after the first results were announced. “As a democrat, I extend my hand to all the other democratic parties that want to form a coalition to change Germany’s direction.”
The CDU’s performance was also considerably worse than expected, about 5 percentage points below recent polling and a stark expression of voter dissatisfaction with the party. The atmosphere at its election headquarters was somber, but party representatives reiterated that they would not cooperate with AfD amid speculation that some conservatives could defect to the far-right party.
The Greens, which had hovered around the 5% threshold required to enter the state parliament throughout the past month, won about 9%. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW, a populist party that, like AfD, advocates closer relations with Russia, was hovering around the electoral threshold.
AfD Saxony-Anhalt state leader Ulrich Siegmund (center)
(Photo: Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP)
Even before the exit polls, it was clear AfD was headed for its strongest-ever showing in the state. The central question was whether it would be enough to govern.
“Our immunity to fascism lasted 80 years,” said Ralf Bollmann, a retiree who sat with his wife at Café Flair after voting. “It took us a little longer than the rest of Europe, but given our history, you would expect it never to return here.”
Opponents of AfD have expressed deep alarm over the prospect of the party taking power. Siegmund, a young, charismatic figure whom Der Spiegel described on its cover as “the most dangerous man in Germany,” built a highly visible campaign, traveling with staff and supporters and cultivating a large following on TikTok and Instagram.
Among his supporters are people known for neo-Nazi or antisemitic views. But his personal appeal, separate from the ideology of his party, has helped explain why he has drawn large crowds.
An AfD-led government would give the party control over state institutions and budgets and significant influence over migration, education, culture and sports policy. It could also give party appointees access to sensitive government information, a particular concern among critics because of AfD figures’ longstanding sympathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin and opposition to Germany’s support for Ukraine.
AfD figures in Saxony-Anhalt have advocated sweeping deportations, including in some cases of legal immigrants who commit crimes. One party member has said deportations should continue until “the runway is scorched” by departing aircraft.
(Photo: AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
Proposals associated with the party also include adding Russian to mandatory school curricula, reducing the emphasis on teaching about the Nazi era, cutting funding for Holocaust remembrance institutions and permitting the use of tear gas in schools deemed particularly problematic.
Other proposals have included separating some immigrant children and children with special needs from other students, restructuring public broadcasting outlets the party regards as left-leaning and replacing some traditional media functions with influencers sympathetic to AfD. Critics have also warned of proposals that could empower vigilante groups to patrol troubled neighborhoods in place of police.
Those warnings have not persuaded voters such as Jana Sturm, a 25-year-old photography student and Saxony-Anhalt native.
“I think there’s a lot of fearmongering going on here. They’re demonizing something different, new, alternative,” she said. “The truth is that everyone is fed up. Germany has been declining for almost 10 years in nearly every area. Every government that gets formed is just stuck fighting with itself and can’t get anything done. People are tired of it.”
“For me, and for a lot of people in my generation, [AfD] offers something different, and we no longer care about taking the chance,” she added.
‘We’re tired of feeling neglected by Berlin’s elites’
“You can’t keep doing the same thing and hope for a different result,” Sturm said. “We’re tired of feeling neglected by the elites in Berlin. Germany is changing. It’s spending enormous amounts of money on rearmament and strengthening its military, and large parts of the country are shedding their commitment to Israel and the Jews. Eventually, the right will also rise as part of this breaking of taboos.”
(Photo: John MACDOUGALL / AFP)
“And what happens if AfD succeeds in governing here? I think they’re right,” she added. “I want back the Germany I know only from stories, not the Germany I grew up with and live in now.”
AfD is no longer primarily an eastern German phenomenon. The party has also risen sharply in nationwide polling, reaching nearly 30% in some surveys. One thing is clear among many of its supporters: They are prepared to wait. If they cannot take power now, they believe continued paralysis and irreconcilable differences among the established parties will eventually work in their favor.
In central Magdeburg, at least two or three people carried copies of the Der Spiegel issue featuring Siegmund on its cover, bearing his autograph. The magazine had become a collector’s item among supporters.
Conversations with Israelis and Jews in Saxony-Anhalt also suggest shifting perceptions of political threats.
“Since Oct. 7, we’ve seen here, and across Germany, an alliance between the radical left and radical Islam, and that is a much more tangible, everyday threat to my life here as a Jew and an Israeli,” an Israeli musician living in Magdeburg told ynet. “I won’t vote for [AfD], for obvious reasons, but they’re definitely not my biggest enemy here. They were, but others have overtaken them in the past three years.”
Two major events have shaped the mood in Saxony-Anhalt over the past two years.
Magdeburg Christmas market
(Photo: REUTERS/Axel Schmidt)
In December 2024, a Saudi-born doctor drove a car into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing 11 people and injuring dozens. The suspect had expressed anti-Islam views and sympathy for some far-right narratives, but for many residents, the lasting memory of the attack has been reduced to the image of a Muslim man driving into people celebrating at a Christian Christmas market.
Separately, U.S. chipmaker Intel abandoned a planned 30 billion-euro semiconductor factory in Magdeburg, dealing an economic blow to a region that had expected the project to bring investment and jobs.
The two events were unrelated, but each added to the anger, frustration and resentment coursing through the state.
“For years, they stored enormous amounts of anger inside themselves,” Bollmann, the retired banker, said. “Now all that toxic energy is being released into the air.”
Bollmann returned to the landscapes of his childhood after a successful career in western Germany. But an AfD government, he said, would be the breaking point.
“If they come to power,” he said, “we’ll pack everything up and leave — this time, Germany altogether.”
As the first results approached, Willy-Brandt-Platz outside Magdeburg’s main train station filled with demonstrators calling for AfD to be politically isolated and warning that the party would bring destruction, violence and inhumanity to Germany.
But as during the election campaign, their warnings struggled to break through the crowds backing AfD, whose supporters dismissed the demonstrators as “the emissaries from Berlin.”