BERLIN — In a few weeks, Germany’s far-right party — Alternative for Germany, better known as AfD — could become a governing party of a German state for the first time. The stakes go far beyond the one state — and likely beyond Europe.
Germany’s modern political system was designed to prevent far-right rule. But Ulrich Siegmund, AfD’s head candidate, is currently leading in polls to become the head of a state government, Saxony-Anhalt.
The Sept. 6 election has the AfD candidates polling significantly better than in previous elections. Should there be a state-level win in Saxony-Anhalt, the change could build momentum for high AfD turnout across Germany later in September.
An AfD win in one state “signals to other elections that are coming up that it’s possible for them to win,” according to Lukas Stöetzer, a political science professor at the University of Witten/Herdecke. “It would give [the AfD] a small boost.”
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A far-right rise in Germany — the European Union’s largest economy and a strategic pillar of NATO — could have lasting global effects. If the AfD increases its influence in the federal government, it could dial back support for Ukraine’s defense against Russia and adopt a warmer posture toward Vladimir Putin’s country, both moves that most Western leaders don’t support.
The government in Germany operates much differently than its American counterpart. In Germany, state governments control votes in the Bundesrat, the federal upper house representing the states that approves federal legislation. An AfD-led state government would have a major impact on how the Bundesrat governs and for the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, the country’s leading center-right political party.
AfD’s rise is the latest chapter in a broader far-right surge across Europe, from Giorgia Meloni’s premiership in Italy to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally emerging as France’s leading opposition force. But not every far-right party endorses AfD’s approach: Le Pen has publicly distanced herself from the AfD’s methods and rhetoric.
In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD is leading the polls, with support at roughly 41%, about 20 points ahead of the CDU — a lead wide enough that the party could govern alone outright if smaller parties like the center-left Social Democrats fail to clear Germany’s 5% threshold for parliamentary representation.
Siegmund, the AfD candidate, is media-savvy and has a large internet following. He’s served in the Landtag, or state parliament, of Saxony-Anhalt since 2016 and has been co-group leader of the AfD faction there since 2022. He has cited ending migration to Germany and prioritizing “remigration,” or deportation of immigrants, as important issues.
But for about a decade, Germany’s mainstream parties have had an informal but strictly enforced political consensus, called Brandmauer, to never cooperate with the AfD. That could all change after Sept. 6.
Experts have pointed to a clear divide between East and West Germany that never fully recovered after the Berlin Wall fell, with East Germany struggling with issues similar to many regions of the United States: industrial job loss, rising prices and unemployment, and an influx of migrants.
“We have a special problem in the Eastern states …because of the crisis after unification, especially economic affairs,” said Hajo Funke, a retired political science professor who worked at the Free University of Berlin. “This has had traumatic [effects], be it the high unemployment, especially soon after unification and lack of comparable well-being like in West Germany.”
“We have a party, the right-wingish, racist, extremist AfD, who built upon [dissatisfaction in Germany] and tried to get executive functions in Saxon-Anhalt,” he added.
Some Germans’ concerns about AfD center on the party’s purported neo-Nazi connections, anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric that romanticizes Germany’s past. Notably, Saxony-Anhalt’s AfD state branch has been formally classified as “confirmed right-wing extremist” by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (Verfassungsschutz) since 2023.
“Björn Höcke is leaning to neo-Nazi ideas and he’s very influential, maybe the most influential within the party,” Funke said, speaking about the AfD leader in Thuringia, a German state.
Berlin votes on Sept. 20, just two weeks later, and AfD candidates are also leading in the polls there for the first time, making it a “double test” rather than an isolated event.
Germany’s current government makeup is a coalition of the CDU and the Social Democratic Party of Germany, led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, formed after the February 2025 federal election that ousted former Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government.
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