In the federal election on 23 February, the AfD was able to double its share of second votes with a significant increase in voter turnout. The results in the east are particularly spectacular. The party achieved more than 30 per cent of the second votes in all eastern German states. In Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, the respective state average was between 37 and almost 39 per cent and in the absolute strongholds even between 43 and 47 per cent of voters voted for the AfD.
Nevertheless, the electoral maps, on which the former GDR appears in blue and the old Federal Republic including Berlin essentially in black and red, are misleading in several respects. Firstly, although the five eastern German states are large, they are sparsely populated and their populations are shrinking. Only one sixth of the electorate currently lives there. This does not change the fact that the AfD has achieved a hegemonic position in large parts of the former GDR, but it does mean that only roughly a quarter of AfD votes come from there.
Secondly, the east’s share of the AfD result has actually shrunk (from a third in the 2021 election) because the party has made proportionally greater gains in the old west, coming from a much lower starting level. In all western German federal states, the AfD was able to double its 2021 result at least; in 15 western German constituencies, it now achieves results of more than 24.6%, the best eastern German state result (Saxony) of 2021. And thirdly, the shares are in some cases even significantly higher, especially in smaller western German municipalities. The AfD’s success in 2025 is therefore by no means a purely eastern German phenomenon.
This is a machine translation of an op-ed I wrote about the election for a German newspaper (Handelsblatt). The original article is here (but often paywalled):
According to initial analyses, it was also possible because the party was able to mobilise former non-voters on a large scale and also win numerous votes from the CDU/CSU, FDP and SPD across Germany. The gains among young and first-time voters, a group in which the AfD has performed rather poorly in the past, are also noteworthy. It is now achieving at least average results there. It is striking that the party is particularly popular among young men, while it is clearly rejected by young women. However, this is largely in line with the picture in the population as a whole: as in the past, there are roughly two AfD voters for every female AfD voter. The election result therefore not only shows an east-west divide, but also one between the genders and one between those who are satisfied and those who feel left behind.
This is because nothing has changed in the other socio-structural profile (more middle to low education, more members of the working or lower middle class) and the world view of AfD voters (migration as a threat, major concerns about the future). The strong gains can therefore be explained above all by the fact that, unlike in 2021, the issue of migration is once again relatively high on the agenda and was framed exclusively as a problem of internal security in the election campaign, right up to the left of the political spectrum. The CDU/CSU and FDP in particular have also helped to further normalise the AfD by adopting AfD demands and formulations and, most recently, by voting together in the Bundestag, thus making it more electable for more people.
So, is Germany simply catching up with a development that began decades ago in our neighbouring countries (including Austria and the Netherlands)? Right-wing radical parties that oppose everything ‘foreign’, but also liberal institutions such as the protection of minorities, the pluralistic media system or independent courts, have been able to celebrate success there since the 1990s. Unlike openly extremist right-wing actors, they are not calling for the complete abolition of democracy. Their long-term goal is not a classic dictatorship, but Victor Orbán’s ‘illiberal democracy’: a system in which they have undermined democratic institutions to such an extent that they can rule permanently.
This is problematic enough in itself, but the AfD differs significantly from its sister parties abroad. The latter are increasingly endeavouring to adopt a more moderate stance in order to be electable for broader sections of the population and, for the same reason, shy away from overly obvious points of contact with right-wing extremism.
The AfD, on the other hand, is moving in the opposite direction. The völkisch-nationalist faction led by Björn Höcke has dominated the party since 2017 at the latest. It is considered to be definitely right-wing extremist, and the party as a whole is a right-wing extremist ‘suspected case’ – an assessment that has been confirmed by the courts several times. The AfD has even become too extreme for other far-right parties in the European Parliament. When plans for the ‘remigration’ of insufficiently ‘assimilated’ citizens became known a year ago and the lead candidate trivialised the Waffen SS at the end of the election campaign, they excluded the AfD from their parliamentary group. Such ideas are unacceptable even for Marine Le Pen and the other members of the ‘Patriots’ group in the EP.
So how should the democratic parties in Germany react to the AfD’s electoral success? In neighbouring countries, the strategy of moving closer to the right-wing extremists in terms of words and content has made them the strongest force, and the bourgeois right has withered away. We can learn from these mistakes. Around three quarters of eligible voters still see the AfD as an extreme right-wing party that is unelectable for them. Germany’s democratic parties still have the opportunity to put their own issues – economic, social and environmental policy – back on the agenda instead of letting themselves be driven by the AfD into a competition for the most shrill slogans that they cannot win. The opportunity is there, but it must be seized now.
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