AfD takes 44 percent in Saxony-Anhalt and still lacks a majority

The Alternative for Germany finished first in Saxony-Anhalt on 6 September with about 44 percent of the vote, its strongest result in any German state election. Near-final counts and ARD projections put the party on 39 of 83 seats in the Magdeburg Landtag. An absolute majority is 42. The party is one short of governing on its own, and every other major party has said it will not sit in cabinet with it.

The Christian Democratic Union, which has led the state government and is the party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, fell to between 17 and 18.5 percent, depending on the count. In 2021 the CDU took 37 percent. The Left was near 9.4 percent. The Social Democrats and Greens were in the low-to-mid 8 percent range. The Free Democrats dropped below the 5 percent threshold. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW, scraped over it in late projections.

About 1.7 million people were eligible to vote. Turnout was high. Almost all direct mandates went to the AfD. In 2021 the CDU had held nearly all of them.

What the numbers do and do not allow

Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD lead candidate, told supporters the party had made history and was taking the country back, starting in Saxony-Anhalt. Alice Weidel, the federal co-leader, called the result a clear mandate to govern. Siegmund said he would offer a hand to any party willing to change the state’s politics, and that the AfD would not bend to others. He also floated the idea of persuading individual lawmakers to switch.

The arithmetic is tight. Axios and German outlets reported that AfD plus BSW would hold 43 seats, one above a majority, if BSW agreed to work with the AfD. BSW mixes left economics with hard limits on migration and closer ties to Russia. It has not ruled out talks in the way the CDU, SPD, Greens and Left have. Siegmund publicly rejected the idea of a minority government that would need AfD votes from outside cabinet. That leaves three paths: a BSW deal, defections, or a long attempt by the CDU to assemble SPD, Greens, Left and BSW against the first-place party.

Sven Schulze, the outgoing CDU minister-president, congratulated the AfD on the win. His outgoing coalition with the SPD and FDP is finished on the numbers. Even a broader centre bloc would be a minority without BSW or without peeling votes from the AfD caucus.

Why this state election travels beyond Magdeburg

Saxony-Anhalt is not a large state. The result matters because no far-right party has led a German state government since 1945. The AfD’s Saxony-Anhalt branch is classified as right-wing extremist by the state office of the domestic intelligence service. Mainstream parties have treated that classification as a reason for a firewall. The firewall held in the sense that no coalition was signed on election night. It did not hold in the electorate. The AfD more than doubled its 20.8 percent from 2021.

The party’s platform in this campaign was familiar: tighter immigration rules and warmer ties with Russia. Merz’s federal coalition now faces a state where his own party was halved and the AfD can claim a popular mandate even if it cannot yet form a cabinet. Berlin voters cast ballots the same day. Early readings there put the AfD near 18 percent in a city that has long sat on the left.

The previous eastern high-water mark was Thuringia in 2024, when the AfD took 32.8 percent. Sunday’s figure sits well above that. It also arrives while Merz is already under pressure on migration and on the cost of supporting Ukraine. A state government in Magdeburg led by Siegmund would give the AfD ministries, a state police apparatus and a vote in the Bundesrat. A failed attempt to form one would keep the party in opposition with the largest caucus and a simple message: the other parties ignored the first-place list.

Coalition talks will decide which of those two outcomes arrives. The seat count on Sunday night already decided something else. The AfD is no longer a protest fraction in this state. It is the largest party in the Landtag, and the parties that refuse to work with it must now explain how they intend to govern without it.