It is the best result for a party in the country's 36-year post-reunification history: According to preliminary results, the AfD received 43.8 percent of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt. For decades, the CDU mostly dominated state politics - but even it only achieved a maximum of 39 percent (1990), 37.3 percent (2002) or 37.1 percent (2021).
Until now, the AfD had only been the strongest party in Thuringia. The Saxony-Anhalt regional association has exceeded the local result of 32.8 percent (2024) by a massive eleven percent.
And two more nationwide comparisons: The last time a party received more than the AfD's 43.8 percent yesterday was eleven and a half years ago. In February 2015, the Hamburg SPD achieved 45.6 percent - but even then that was an exceptional result nationwide.
This contrasts with the CDU's massive losses of 19.9 points. Only once has a party lost so massively in a federal or state election - also the CDU and also in Hamburg: in 2011, after the black-green party was eliminated, there was a loss of 20.7 points.
Only in Brandenburg (12.1 percent / 2024) and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (13.3 percent / 2021) is the CDU currently doing worse than in Saxony-Anhalt - although, according to the survey, there is a risk of further losses in the northeast in the state elections the weekend after next.
Beyond the party results, there is another figure that is exceptional: the voter turnout of 77.8 percent. This is the highest value in state elections since 1998 in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (79.4 percent). And even before that, there were only two examples after reunification: Berlin (80.8 percent / 1990) and Saarland in 1994 with 83.5 percent.
Tops and flops of the AfD
The AfD became the strongest force in the first votes in 38 of 41 constituencies in Saxony-Anhalt. Your state parliamentary group will therefore be made up of victorious direct candidates except for one representative.
The best AfD first vote result - and therefore the best ever - was achieved by Reiner Kretschmann in the Eisleben constituency with 55.6 percent, followed by Hans-Thomas Tillschneider with 54.9 percent in the Querfurt constituency and Jonas Dirk (Weißenfels) and Matthias Büttner (Staßfurt) with 53.4 percent each. The constituency winner with the weakest first vote result for the AfD is Christian Mertens in Magdeburg III with 35.2 percent - he beat Prime Minister Sven Schulze from the CDU.
AfD top candidate Ulrich Siegmund won his Genthin constituency with 49 percent.
The best second vote results for the AfD were in the Staßfurt constituency (54.1 percent). They were weakest in Hall III (18.3 percent) - this constituency will appear more frequently in this text. In fact, all eight constituencies in the Saxony-Anhalt cities of Magdeburg and Halle are in the top ten places in this list.
In the cities and districts, it achieved its best results in Mansfeld-Südharz (51.9 percent), in the Burgenland district (51.1 percent) and in the Salzland district (49.7 percent) and therefore also the best nationwide - its worst results in Halle/Saale (29.9 percent), Magdeburg (32.6 percent) and Dessau-Roßlau (38.9 percent). But it became the strongest force in all cities and districts.
And that also applies to the municipalities: Here it was ahead in all 218. Her top result was in Schnaudertal with 64.7 percent.
Tops and flops of the CDU
Five years ago, the CDU won all but one constituency - this time none. Top candidate Sven Schulze lost comparatively narrowly in his Magdeburg III constituency with 31.7 percent of the first votes against the AfD candidate Christian Mertens (35.2 percent). There were other comparatively strong first vote results in the Dessau-Roßlau (29.6 percent) and Haldensleben (29.6 percent) constituencies.
In the Wittenberg constituency, the CDU got the best second vote result. Here it achieved 21.4 percent, ahead of 19.9 percent in the Jessen constituency and 19 percent in Merseburg. In - again - Hall III, however, it only landed at 11.3 percent.
At the district level, it came in second place behind the AfD everywhere - except in Magdeburg and Halle, where it was only the third strongest force behind the Greens. Their best results were in Wittenberg (20.3 percent), in the Saalekreis (18.7 percent) and again Dessau-Roßlau (18.3 percent), their worst with 13.9 percent in Halle.
At the community level, the values in Steigra (23.3 percent), Gleina (23.2 percent) and Selke-Aue (22.7 percent) were their best - compared to Hohenberg-Krusemark (11.6 percent) and Plötzkau (11.7 percent). In the municipalities it was the second strongest party 216 times - in 218 municipalities.
Tops and flops from the other parties
The Left Party only became the fifth strongest party - but it won the three constituencies that did not go to the AfD: In Hall III, Jannik-Loris Balint got 39.9 percent of the votes - and thus 4.6 times the state result at the second vote level. Gitta Susann Hartenstein-Wiermann won next door in Hall II with 29.6 percent and Mustafa Groener in Magdeburg II with 29.4 percent. The latter two are the weakest constituency winning results nationwide.
Another stronghold was the Altmarkkreis Salzwedel constituency (10.7 percent) and, for example, the municipality of Goldbeck with 13.8 percent. However, the party performed poorly in the constituencies of Bad Dürrenberg-Saalekreis and Saalekreis (6.5 percent each) and especially in the municipality of Schnaudertal (4.2 percent).
The Greens, in turn, became the strongest force in the second votes in the Halle III constituency, which has already been mentioned several times. In all other constituencies it was the AfD.
The Greens achieved 33.7 percent in Hall III - almost four times their national result. Their strongholds at the city/district and therefore also municipal level were Halle with 20.7 percent and Magdeburg with 16.1 percent. For example, in the Eisleben constituency (3.8 percent), the Mansfeld-Südharz district or the Schnaudertal community (1.8 percent), there was nothing for them to gain.
Although the SPD became the third strongest force nationwide for the first time since 2011, it did not win any constituencies and was not the strongest force in any district or municipality. Their best constituency was Wernigerode with 14 percent, their weakest was Staßfurt with 6.5 percent.
At the municipal level, it got 16.5 percent in the cities of Wernigerode and Ilsenburg (Harz) - but in Hederlsleben only 2.9 percent. And at the district level, it performed weakest in the Burgenland district at seven percent, and best in Halle and Magdeburg.
The BSW narrowly made it into the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament for the first time - also thanks to results such as in the Aschersleben constituency with 7.4 percent, in Dessau-Roßlau (6.4 percent) and the municipality of Loitsche-Heinrichsberg (8.5 percent). However, the Wagenknecht party remained weak in the already mentioned municipality of Schnaudertal (2.4 percent), in Hedersleben (2.3 percent), the Wittenberg district (4.5 percent) and, for example, the Halle III constituency (3.8 percent).
