An ARD survey of voters as they left the polls on Sunday put AfD at 44.5% in the eastern state, marking the party's top performance since it began in 2013. The same readout showed the CDU at 18.5%, the Left at 9.5%, the Greens at 9%, the SPD at 8%, and BSW at 5%, with the caveat that tallies could shift as the night goes on. Despite the commanding lead, the party is on track to miss the threshold needed to govern on its own.
Ulrich Siegmund, AfD's state chief in Saxony-Anhalt, drew arena-sized crowds in the final stretch, greeting supporters at festival-style rallies in Magdeburg on Sept. 6 as people lined up for selfies and autographs. He had set out to win enough seats to rule without partners and declared, "We achieved exactly what we set out to achieve," later telling Bloomberg, "We can only win." If he falls short of a solo majority, he said he would watch the turbulence he expects under a CDU-led administration play out for "a few months."
The CDU's slump came against a backdrop of weak growth and pricier energy, and Merz was kept at arm's length from voters on the trail. Merz has warned the AfD would send Germany "into the abyss." Prominent industry figures caution that investment is being put off. Germany's domestic intelligence service says parts of the AfD are a threat to the constitutional order.
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AfD has ridden voter anger with calls to stop migration, abandon climate policies, and rebuild ties with Russia. In Saxony-Anhalt, party figures have floated a state-financed "deportation task force," a drive to purge the civil service, and a revamp of schools to strip out what they call "left-wing indoctrination." Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution said in its latest annual report released in June that more AfD officials are openly embracing the idea of "remigration," meaning mass expulsions.
Those stances have left the party out in the cold even among European far-right groups. France's Marine Le Pen cut ties with AfD in 2024 after an AfD lawmaker argued in an interview that some members of the Nazi SS should not automatically be deemed criminals. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has kept her distance as AfD champions closer alignment with Russia while her Brothers of Italy underscores transatlantic ties.
If AfD does not clinch an outright majority, every other party - all of which have ruled out cooperation with it - would be pushed to stitch together a many-sided coalition. A wildcard is BSW, the splinter outfit launched by longtime Left figure Sahra Wagenknecht, which is hovering at 5% and could complicate the arithmetic if it enters the state parliament. Saxony-Anhalt has about 2 million people and the lowest economic output per person among Germany's 16 states, and since reunification it has seen the steepest population drop in the country, shrinking by more than one quarter from 1990 to 2024. For your money, the takeaway is simple: policy direction and political stability shape local investment appetite, and the coalition haggling ahead will set the tone for growth, energy plans, and business sentiment in the months to come.
