German Election Exit Polls: Former Merkel Party Regains Top Spot, Populist AfD Surges to Strong Second Place, and Leftist Social Democrats Collapse

The exit polls for the federal elections in Germany predict that the neo-liberal Christian Democrats have come out on top, with the support of around one in three voters, with the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) coming in a strong second place at nearly 20 per cent, beating out all members of the former ‘traffic light’ coalition government of likely outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

According to public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, exit polls indicate that the supposedly centre-right “Union” of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) will become the largest party in Germany once again, with a projected 29 per cent of the vote.

Should the projections hold, the party, led by Angela Merkel’s successor Friedrich Merz, will be in line to form a government in the Bundestag, with Merz being the likely next chancellor of the country. However, according to DW correspondent Michaela Küfner “nobody was ecstatic” among the CDU, noting that the party is projected to have failed to reach the “psychologically important” threshold of 30 per cent.

The exit polls went on to show that the populist anti-mass migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) has massively increased its representation, securing a projected 19.5 per cent of the vote, up from 12.6 per cent in the last election in 2021.

Following the strong showing for her party, AfD chancellor candidate Alice Weidel branded it a “historic success”. She said that her party is “open to coalition negotiations with the CDU,” warning that “otherwise, no policy change is possible in Germany.”

Meanwhile, the support for the former government leading Social Democrats of leftist Chancellor Olaf Scholz collapsed, falling from nearly 26 per cent in 2021 to a projected 16 per cent on Sunday. Government coalition partner, the Greens, also saw their support decline according to the exit polls, from 14.7 per cent to 13.5 per cent.

SPD General Secretary Matthias Miersch said that it was a “very bitter evening” admitting that it was a “historic defeat” for his party, adding that “it is clear that the government mandate to Friedrich Merz now exists.”

Rounding out the edges, The Left, the descendant of the Marxist–Leninist ruling party of the former Communist East Germany, has seemingly had a resurgence at a projected to have won 8.5 per cent of the vote, nearly double its last performance.

According to the current projections, former government coalition partner, the corporatist Free Democrats (FDP), are hovering just below the 5 per cent threshold required to be awarded seats in the Bundestag. The upstart BSW of anti-mass migration leftist-populist Sahra Wagenknecht is also projected to fall short of the threshold at 4.7 per cent.

However, given the small margin needed for both parties to surpass the threshold, both parties may still have a chance to enter the parliament by the final tally.

The full election results are not expected to be finalised until Monday morning, and critically, the work of building a coalition government, which has become essentially necessary in the multi-party parliamentary system in Germany, may take even longer.

Ahead of the election, CDU leader Friedrich Merz vowed to uphold the cordon sanitaire ‘firewall’ around the Alternative for Germany, ruling out a coalition with the populist-right party despite seemingly being closer to the party on issues such as migration and the green agenda. This means that Merz will likely attempt to reform the “grand coalition” between the Union and the leftist Social Democrats that ruled for much of the Merkel era.

Such a coalition may make it difficult for Merz to deliver on key promises around migration, potentially leaving an open lane for the AfD to continue to grow ahead of the next election in 2029.

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