German exit polls suggest far-right party has big lead in regional election

Saxony-Anhalt Exit Polls Put AfD Near Historic First State Government

Ecorescuezone.com – In a result that could redraw the map of German state politics, exit-poll data released Sunday from the country’s two major public broadcasters placed the Alternative for Germany (AfD) at roughly 44 percent of the vote in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. The figure puts the far-right party within striking distance of governing the region on its own — a milestone that would mark the first time since the end of World War II that a far-right movement holds executive power in a German state.

The stakes were set before voters cast their ballots. AfD entered the Saxony-Anhalt contest explicitly targeting an absolute majority in the state parliament, a threshold that would allow it to form a government without needing coalition partners. Achieving that goal would effectively dismantle what German political commentators have long called the “firewall” — the informal but deeply entrenched practice whereby established parties refuse to enter governing coalitions with the AfD. That norm, born in the aftermath of the party’s founding in 2013, has kept the AfD confined to opposition benches at the state level even as it has grown into the largest opposition force in the national Bundestag.

The Numbers Behind the Polls

The ARD and ZDF exit polls, conducted across Saxony-Anhalt’s roughly 2.1 million residents in a region situated west of Berlin, painted a dramatic shift from the previous cycle. Five years ago, AfD had captured approximately 22 percent of the vote in this state. Sunday’s result more than doubled that share, propelling the party into a position of outright dominance over the legislative arithmetic.

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right party, was seen finishing second at around 18.5 percent — a figure representing a loss of roughly half its previous support base. The CDU has governed Saxony-Anhalt continuously for 24 years, making the erosion of its regional foothold a particularly pointed rebuke. The Left Party appeared to land third with approximately 9 percent of the vote.

The Social Democratic Party and the Greens were both projected to clear the threshold for state-parliament representation, each polling in the 8 to 9 percent range. The BSW party, a smaller formation, faced uncertainty over whether it would clear the five-percent minimum required to win seats in the state legislature.

Crucially, the exit-poll data placed AfD at least marginally below the absolute-majority line. That narrow shortfall means the party cannot simply walk into the governor’s office unilaterally. It will need to negotiate a governing arrangement — either a coalition or a confidence-and-cooperation agreement — with at least one other parliamentary group, a scenario that collides directly with the firewall convention.

Reactions from Both Sides

Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s 35-year-old candidate for state governor, addressed the ARD broadcast shortly after polls closed. His tone was one of triumph tempered by an awareness that the final tally had not yet delivered the clean sweep his campaign had promised.

“We have written history,” Siegmund told ARD. “Voters have sent a signal that things cannot carry on like this.”

He went on to credit the incumbent chancellor with inadvertently fueling his own campaign’s momentum.

“The unpopular Merz has been a very good campaigner for us,” Siegmund added.

On the CDU side, Franziska Hoppermann, the party’s national general secretary, acknowledged the severity of the result in a brief statement.

“It is a very difficult result for us,” Hoppermann said.

Why Saxony-Anhalt Matters

The eastern states — Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Saxony, Brandenburg, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern — were part of the former German Democratic Republic and have consistently voted more heavily for AfD than their western counterparts. Lower median incomes, higher unemployment, and a sense of economic marginalization since reunification have made these regions fertile ground for parties that frame their politics around cultural grievance and anti-establishment rhetoric. Saxony-Anhalt, with its capital in Magdeburg and its industrial and agricultural economy, has been among the most competitive eastern battlegrounds in recent election cycles.

A first far-right state government would arrive at a moment of acute national discontent. Chancellor Merz’s center-right administration has struggled to convince voters that it can reverse Germany’s sluggish economic growth, and approval ratings have remained depressed throughout the current parliamentary term. The Saxony-Anhalt result, even if it ultimately produces a coalition rather than a single-party government, would hand AfD a platform from which to project executive-level policy positions — on migration, energy, and fiscal matters — into the national debate with considerably more authority than opposition status alone affords.

What Comes Next

The formal count, conducted by the state electoral authority over the following days, will confirm or adjust the exit-poll margins. If AfD falls short of an absolute majority, as the polling suggests, the question becomes which, if any, party will agree to share power with it. The CDU, SPD, Greens, and Left Party have all maintained firewall positions at the state level, though the political calculus may shift under the pressure of governing responsibility. A prolonged negotiation period, or a return to fresh elections, would keep the state in a caretaker limbo while the national government watches closely.

For a party that has spent thirteen years building its organization from a small protest movement into Germany’s largest opposition force, the Saxony-Anhalt result represents the closest approach yet to the executive. Whether the firewall holds or bends will be the defining question of the weeks ahead — and a referendum, in effect, on how German democracy accommodates a far-right movement that now commands nearly half the vote in one of its eastern states.