The Saxony-Anhalt elections may have marked a turning point in German politics. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has obtained 44.5% of the votes. More than double the 20.8% achieved in 2021 and the best result for AfD in a regional election. But perhaps the politically most important figure is not even that. It is the collapse of the CDU, which falls from 37.1% to 18.5%, its historic low in the state.
The rest of the system also appears weakened. Die Linke ends up as the third force with around 9.5%, followed by the Greens with 9% and an SPD reduced to 8%, while BSW hovers around the 5% threshold and the liberals are left outside parliament. AfD has not simply won a single election. It has left all its rivals far behind and has placed the regional political system before an extraordinarily difficult arithmetic.
AfD has not simply won a single election. It has left all its rivals far behind
The key to understanding what happened lies in mobilization, as turnout has surged compared to 2021. And a substantial portion of AfD’s growth comes precisely from voters who were abstaining back then. The party has achieved the difficult task of turning disaffection into votes. People who had stopped participating because they couldn’t find an alternative within the system have returned to the polls to vote against that system.
“AfD has achieved the difficult task of turning disaffection into votes”
This datum forces a reconsideration of a too comfortable interpretation of the rise of the radical right. AfD does not grow solely by poaching CDU voters or radicalizing former conservative supporters. The Saxony-Anhalt case is the definitive proof that the party is widening the perimeter of the electoral competition, mobilizing segments that felt politically orphaned. A high turnout, traditionally interpreted as a sign of democratic vitality, has in this instance benefited primarily the party that more effectively channels rejection of the establishment.
Moreover, there is a second datum even more worrying for the traditional parties. The early figures released in the afternoon show that AfD has become the workers’ party. According to Deutschland Wählt, it would have received around 61% of the workers’ vote, in addition to 52% among the self-employed, 46% among employees, and 38% among retirees. In other words, the party is the leading force in all four major occupational groups. The gender gap that had previously limited this ideological family also partially disappears: roughly half of men and four in ten women have voted for AfD. By age, only those over 70 stop being the first choice and among those aged 35 to 59 it even surpasses 50%.
At this point, the comparison with the United States becomes inevitable. As happened with the shift of a significant portion of the working-class vote toward Donald Trump, the parties that for decades institutionally represented the working classes are losing their ability to translate economic insecurity and social frustration into political representation.
The material dimension of this vote should not be ignored. Almost nine in ten AfD voters express concern about prices that make ends meet difficult. And the data seem to back this idea, since since 2021 food prices have risen by around 34.7%, while wages have risen much less, around 14.8%. Immigration matters, but it would be a mistake to explain a result of this magnitude solely by the migration factor. AfD is managing to connect economic insecurity, loss of status, distrust in institutions, identity, and rejection of elites within a single political narrative.
“Parties that for decades represented the working classes institutionally are losing their ability to translate economic insecurity and social frustration into political representation”
The problem for other parties is that a growing portion of that narrative has become normalized. The Infratest dimap data are revealing. 67% of the electorate believes AfD has understood better than other parties that many people no longer feel secure; 59% think that other parties treat them unfairly; 58% value its willingness to curb the arrival of foreigners and refugees and 57% approve its opposition to sending arms to Ukraine. Even more significant: 87% of its own voters believe that, even though there are radical-right politicians within AfD, the party as a whole is centrist.
There is an extraordinary contradiction here. At the same time, 48% of the electorate believes that democracy and the rule of law could be threatened if AfD governed. The party has achieved, therefore, something politically formidable: a portion of the electorate perceives democratic risks and, simultaneously, regards many of its positions as legitimate.
That is why the result inevitably raises the question of the Brandmauer, the German cordon sanitaire. Until now, the answer has been to exclude AfD from the government regardless of its electoral strength. Now, with Alice Weidel’s party at 44.5%, the question begins to change in nature. Cooperating with AfD ceases to be merely an ideological temptation for certain CDU factions and begins to appear as a matter of governance.
“A portion of the electorate perceives democratic risks and, simultaneously, regards many of AfD’s positions as legitimate”
Moreover, the border is no longer as impermeable as official rhetoric would have it. In the European Parliament, the European People’s Party (EPP) has built majorities since 2024 with the ECR, the Patriots, and, in some votes, the right in which AfD is integrated — Europe of the Sovereign Nations (ESN) —, especially on immigration, deregulation, and accountability. Recent investigations have even shown negotiations between EPP MEPs and AfD representatives on migration legislation.
From a broader perspective, it should be remembered that Germany does not operate in a vacuum either. Italy, Sweden, or Austria show different processes through which the old barriers between the conventional right and the radical right have weakened. German exceptionalism rested on the idea that its history made that boundary especially resilient. Saxony-Anhalt may accelerate its erosion. AfD has also achieved a strategically near-perfect result: approaching an absolute majority without needing to reach it, which allows it to condition the entire system without yet bearing the costs of governing. If the other parties maintain the cordon sanitaire, forming stable majorities will be extremely difficult; if any breaks it, AfD will have achieved another of its major political objectives: destabilization.
“AfD has also achieved a strategically near-perfect result that consists of approaching an absolute majority without needing to reach it”
At this moment, therefore, the challenge for democratic parties is not simply to find a parliamentary arrangement that keeps AfD out of government. It is to understand why hundreds of thousands of citizens feel that existing institutions no longer represent them, which again highlights the mediation crisis through which liberal democracies are passing. That requires credible public policies to address economic insecurity, rebuild public services, and restore institutional trust. Because AfD can stay outside the government and yet continue to win. When a party manages to define the issues on which everyone else debates, shift its positions, and massively mobilize those who had abandoned the polls, it is already exercising power.
