1. The Chancellor wobbles even more
“You are not voting for the Chancellor here,” was a common sentence at the election campaign stand in Saxony-Anhalt. The CDU base tried to keep Friedrich Merz's unpopularity away from Magdeburg, Dessau or Gröningen. The few appointments that Merz attended in the country primarily served one goal: to allow him to appear in the most controlled setting possible, far away from the normal population.
After this election, it seems almost impossible that the CDU will contest another federal election campaign with Merz. The question is: How long will it last?
The first calls for resignation came from the back ranks of the Union on the evening of the election: the party needs a “new beginning in terms of personnel and politics,” demands Tim Brand, board member of the Junge Union Brandenburg. "Friedrich Merz should therefore resign as Chancellor and CDU chairman." The question is whether such demands will also be made higher up in the coming days and weeks.
2. Strategic voters support the SPD and the Greens
Significant gains, but many people's cheers get stuck in their throats after a quick calculation: This is what it looked like at the green election party during the forecast on Sunday evening. The SPD had also prepared for significantly worse numbers. Just weeks ago, both parties were driven by the fear of failing at the five percent hurdle.
“Two hearts beat in my chest, one is heavy,” is how Felix Banaszak, Green Party leader, summarized his first reaction. The Greens achieved the best result in their history in Saxony-Anhalt and yet they know: many crosses are borrowed votes and a reaction to strong AfD numbers.
The Greens and the SPD have repeatedly warned in this election campaign: If they make it into the state parliament, the likelihood of an AfD sole government will decrease significantly. Above all, both were able to benefit from the Union. The first analysis of voter migration by infratest dimap assumes that around 18,000 CDU supporters voted for the Greens. 13,000 votes could have moved from the CDU to the SPD.
Party strategists in Berlin know that you cannot rely on these voters in the long term. The numbers can hardly be interpreted as a sharply increasing national trend. “But in order to strategically vote for the Greens, you have to at least think the party is okay,” they say behind the scenes. One hopes that some voters can be won over permanently.
3. No Kubicki comeback for the FDP
He campaigned in a vineyard on the Unstrut, hosted a “bar talk” in Magdeburg, and hosted an economic talk at the castle hotel. This election campaign was Wolfgang Kubicki's first test since his election as party leader in May 2026 - and he was very present. His course: to rail strongly against the federal government and especially Friedrich Merz. The CDU has “delivered nothing” and the “office of Chancellor is too big” for Merz.
But many people in Saxony-Anhalt ran an anti-Merz election campaign, including the AfD. Others have benefited more from the Chancellor's unpopularity than the FDP. Kubicki failed to make a comeback. Instead, the FDP has to accept that around 19,000 votes went from the Liberals to the AfD. However, the liberals in the East traditionally move in a "liberal no man's land", as media analyzes repeatedly say.
Things might get exciting in a liberal heartland. If things don't work out in North Rhine-Westphalia in the state elections in April 2027, the party will clearly move towards insignificance.
4. BSW: A power factor despite quarrels
Many surveys saw the BSW at a maximum of four percent in Saxony-Anhalt in the spring. Since then, the dispute in the party has come to a head: in Thuringia, the parliamentary group and the ministerial team left the party and founded a new party in the neighboring country on the evening of the election. One main reason: They don't want to flirt with right-wing radicals, as Thuringia's Finance Minister Katja Wolf put it.
Wolf and her colleagues were horrified by how much party founder Sahra Wagenknecht sought proximity to the AfD in recent weeks. Wagenknecht Thuringia's AfD leader Björn Höcke offered that we could meet for a discussion. For Saxony-Anhalt, the BSW signaled that a prime minister could be elected together with the AfD.
Course disputes and days of chaos - apparently that didn't hurt the alliance in the last few meters. It could even have led to strategic voting behavior on the right-wing fringe: According to voter migration from Infratest dimap, 2,000 AfD supporters voted for the BSW - possibly because the alliance promised to tear down the firewall. Nevertheless, the question remains: what does the party really stand for? How does she behave in parliaments? And: Would it help the AfD gain power?
5. Non-voters are flocking to the AfD
Saxony-Anhalt has repeated what has already been observed several times: when voter turnout increases, the AfD often benefits the most. According to initial analyses, it was able to convince almost 160,000 non-voters to go to the polls - more than any other party.
She was successful with an election campaign that relied on low-threshold, sometimes almost apolitical offers: from family celebrations to shared moped excursions. Top candidate Ulrich Siegmund was always smiling. The fact that the AfD performed significantly better than in many previous surveys shows that many former non-voters apparently made up their minds in the last few days before the election. For the other parties, this is ambivalent: the more they mobilize against the AfD, the more violent the counter-mobilization becomes.
