In a survey one year ahead of the State legislature elections in Saxony-Anhalt, the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD party has soared to 39 per cent of the vote, a gain of 18 percentage points on the 2021 election.
German legacy media such as state broadcaster MDR were today quick to remind their readers that “the survey provides an interim snapshot of public opinion, which may differ significantly from the result on election day”.
The results have nevertheless been interpreted as a slap in the face of the current State government, a coalition of Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD).
According to the poll, the ruling parties can expect to get barely one third of the vote with CDU polling at 27 per cent (minus 10 percentage points) and SPD at 7 per cent (minus 2 percentage points).
SACHSEN-ANHALT | Sonntagsfrage Landtagswahl Infratest dimap/MDR, MZ, Volksstimme
AfD: 39% (+19)
CDU: 27% (-6)
LINKE: 13% (+2)
SPD: 7% (-9)
BSW: 6% (NEU)
GRÜNE: 3% (-3)
Sonstige: 5% (-9)Änderungen zum 24. Februar 2022
Verlauf: https://t.co/x9wTDqkYqA#ltwst #ltwlsa pic.twitter.com/6uZYrAuOHT
— Deutschland Wählt (@Wahlen_DE) September 4, 2025
The other winners were the two left-wing parties. Die Linke, the self-declared successor party to the former East German unity party SED, polled 13 per cent (plus two percentage points). BSW, a Russia-friendly offshoot of Die Linke, could expect to get 6 per cent of the vote, thus probably passing the 5-per-cent-hurdle to make it into Saxony-Anhalt’s parliament, the Landtag.
The survey was carried out by pollster Infratest dimap among about 1,200 respondents from August 28 to September 2 and was commissioned by local newspaper Magdeburger Volksstimme.
Sven Schulze, State economy minister and frontrunner for the CDU in next year’s election, called the poll “a snapshot”, telling German newspaper Welt today: “Nobody can be happy about these numbers. However, we have not even really started our election campaign yet.”
He blamed the dismal numbers for his party on a nationwide trend of dissatisfaction with politics.
Schulze also stood by the CDU’s line of excluding any coalition with AfD. “It is a fact – and that is also what this survey says – that the majority of people in Saxony-Anhalt wants the CDU to lead the next State government. And we will work towards that.”
He did not comment on his party’s preferences for coalition partners. If Saxony-Anhalt voted according to the poll, the CDU’s only path to power would be a three-party coalition with the SPD and one of the two left-wing parties, Die Linke or BSW.
