An exit poll for broadcaster ZDF put AfD support at 44.1%, with turnout around 80%. The CDU trailed far behind at 18.5%, followed by the Left party at 9.2%, the Social Democrats at 8.8% and the Greens at 8.7%. AfD appeared to fall just one seat shy of an outright majority in the state legislature, according to the poll.
Łukasz Jasiński, an analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, said the result was unambiguous. "There is no doubt this is a great success for AfD", he told the Polish Press Agency (PAP), adding that the high turnout undercut any suggestion the win stemmed from low engagement elsewhere. "It's not that supporters of other parties stayed home. With such high public mobilization, AfD scored a decisive victory".
The CDU's losses — more than half its previous support — will reverberate beyond the state, Jasiński said, weakening Merz's position federally.
Jasiński linked the outcome to Saxony-Anhalt's economic and demographic strains: the state has shed roughly a million residents since German reunification, leaving a population of about 2 million, with unemployment above the national average and a chemical industry squeezed by high energy costs and Chinese competition. He cited additional anxieties over deindustrialization and migration, along with a broader sentiment in parts of eastern Germany that the region is overlooked by the west. AfD also ran an unusually polished, U.S.-style campaign, he said.
Nationally, AfD polls around 27-28% — well behind its Saxony-Anhalt showing — and Jasiński cautioned against reading Sunday's result as a sign the party is close to national power.
Implications for Poland?
While Germany's federal government retains control over foreign, defense and security policy, limiting any state government's direct influence, Jasiński said an AfD administration in Saxony-Anhalt would still carry consequences for Warsaw.
Chief among them: an AfD state premier would gain a seat in the Bundesrat, the upper chamber representing Germany's states, extending pro-Russian, anti-Ukrainian and partly anti-NATO positions into a body where the party has not previously held sway. Jasiński also described a pattern of AfD lawmakers in eastern state parliaments filing detailed inquiries about transport corridors into Poland and critical infrastructure.
"Given this party's closeness to Russia, the question arises whether they are gathering this information only for themselves or passing it on elsewhere", he said. "If it were being passed on, that would weaken our collective security".
He pointed as well to Germany's logistical role in NATO's eastern defense, as a hub through which allied reinforcements would move toward Poland and the Baltic states in a crisis. "An AfD government in Saxony-Anhalt could not block German support for Poland or the Baltic states, but it could, for example, complicate military transports passing through the state's territory", Jasiński said. "In a crisis, when every hour counts, that would be an added complication."
He also raised concerns over AfD's stance on history, describing efforts within the party to downplay the Nazi era and the crimes of the Third Reich while highlighting other periods of German history, alongside repeated references to the postwar expulsion of Germans from Polish territory. "Such historical revisionism is very dangerous in the long run", he said.
Jasinski contrasted AfD with the current Merz government, which he said shares Warsaw's position on Russia and support for Ukraine, unlike predecessors Olaf Scholz, Angela Merkel and Gerhard Schroeder. "We waited a very long time for this", he said.
He voiced skepticism about prospects for Polish-AfD cooperation, even though AfD politicians have praised Poland's border security measures during the migration crisis triggered by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. "The basic problem is that for AfD, Russia is the key political and economic partner east of the Oder and Neisse rivers", Jasiński said. "Poland is not seen by AfD as an actor, as a state with its own interests and potential as a partner".
Who are AfD?
The nationalist, populist AfD calls for sharply curbing immigration, reducing the powers of European Union institutions and "normalizing" relations with Russia, including lifting sanctions and reviving the Nord Stream gas pipeline. Germany's domestic intelligence agency has classified the party's Saxony-Anhalt branch as right-wing extremist since 2023. Sunday's vote was widely viewed as a critical test of the so-called firewall, the practice by which Germany's mainstream parties have refused to govern with AfD.
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Source: PAP