This past weekend’s election in Saxony-Anhalt shocked Germany with the victory of Alternative für Deutschland with more than 40% of the votes. In this newsletter, we look into the reasons behind such vote and what it means for Europe at large.
Sunday’s AfD’s 43.8% victory in Saxony-Anhalt is not that easy to explain. The simplest interpretation is that almost half of the electorate has moved to the far right because of migration. The data suggest something more complicated. Migration is important, but the vote is rooted in a broader combination of insecurity, dissatisfaction and distrust of the political establishment.
The strongest motivation among AfD voters was internal security, cited by 24%, followed by migration and social security at 18% each. The economy accounted for another 14%, while 13% cited peace in Europe. The pattern matters: voters were not responding to one issue, but to a broader perception that Germany is becoming less secure and predictable while established parties are failing to provide convincing answers.
Economic anxiety nevertheless provides much of the background. Before the election, economic conditions, work and wages were identified as the most important problem in the state by 38.5% of respondents, ahead of infrastructure and local services. Almost nine in ten respondents also expressed concern about rising prices and their ability to pay their bills. The AfD has been effective at turning these concerns into a wider political argument about loss of control.
How the AfD Is Expanding Its Electoral Base
This is where the result becomes more significant than a conventional protest vote. The AfD is increasingly convincing voters that it understands problems that other parties either underestimate or avoid. Sixty-seven percent of respondents in one survey said the party had better understood than others that many people no longer feel safe. Majorities also associated its success with its harder position on immigration and its opposition to weapons deliveries to Ukraine.
The security issue is particularly important. The AfD has managed to connect migration, crime and social order into a single political narrative. If the German voters agree with every element of that narrative is less important than the fact that the party has established ownership of the issue. The mainstream parties are consequently responding to an agenda they did not set.
There is also a clear protest component. In some polling before the vote the federal government was substantially less popular than the state government, while a large majority of respondents believed that better performance by Berlin would have weakened the AfD.
Among former CDU voters, many explicitly described their decision as a punishment for the federal government. This is arguably the most damaging element for chancellor Friedrich Merz. The CDU did not lose voters because those voters became more conservative, It lost voters because the AfD has positioned itself as the more effective vehicle for expressing dissatisfaction with Berlin. And this dichotomy makes the problem harder to solve through a shift on migration alone or a swift from the green push minority coalitions forces in Berlin are trying to pass.
The electorate also reveals how deeply the party has penetrated parts of eastern Germany. AfD support is particularly strong among men, manual workers, people with lower levels of education and economically weaker groups. Crucially, the party also mobilised former non-voters. With turnout approached 80%, the result was not simply an existing AfD electorate becoming more active; the party was able to bring previously disengaged voters into the political system.
The Eastern German Advantage
Eastern Germany is particularly fertile ground for this politics. The region remains significantly poorer than western Germany, with lower wages, weaker economic output and persistent structural disparities more than three decades after reunification. The combination of economic disadvantage, demographic decline and a longstanding perception of political distance from Berlin has given the AfD a receptive electorate. The party has consequently found it much easier to establish itself in the East than in the West.
The Saxony-Anhalt outcome also reveals the boundaries of that success. Securing eastern Germany is no longer the true challenge for the AfD; the question is whether it can convert its eastern bases into a truly national alliance.
The challenges to go National
Western Germany remains considerably more difficult territory, with stronger established party structures and historically weaker AfD support. A breakthrough in major western Länder would therefore represent a more dangerous development: it would demonstrate that the party’s appeal is no longer primarily regional but has become a central feature of German politics as a whole.
This explains why the result should not be treated simply as an ideological shift to the right. The AfD has become the political outlet for several forms of dissatisfaction at once. Migration provides one of its strongest mobilisation issues, but security, economic anxiety, distrust of government and opposition to Germany’s foreign-policy choices have broadened its appeal.
Beyond the Brandmauer
For the CDU, this creates a deeper strategic problem than the Brandmauer, which is the firewall created by the German parties to don’t make AFD create a government. The question is not whether Merz should move closer to the AfD. It is whether the CDU can once again convince voters that mainstream government can deliver security, economic stability and effective public services.
For European Union policies, the distinction is quite important. An AfD driven mainly by ideology would face a fairly fixed electoral limit which could be around 10% of the total German voters. A party capable of absorbing economic frustration, security concerns, and political distrust reaches a much wider potential electorate. Saxony-Anhalt therefore signals less a sudden ideological shift than a warning about the weakening of the political centre. The decisive test will arise when the AfD must attract voters who lack the specific economic and political conditions of eastern Germany and this will be the real test for German costitutional landscape, will Germany repeat history?
