The AfD has won the Landtagswahl in Sachsen-Anhalt with 44.4 percent in the ARD projection, taking the top spot and posting its strongest result in a state election. But the result also shows the limit of that surge: the party is still short of the absolute majority it would need to govern alone.
That matters now because the vote redraws power in Magdeburg in one step. Sven Schulze’s CDU drops to 18.4 percent, while the Linke, Grüne and SPD are all projected safely into the Landtag. The FDP, at 2.2 percent, falls below the mandate threshold. The BSW is on 5.0 percent and has to wait to see whether it clears the line.
For Ulrich Siegmund, whom the AfD placed at the center of its campaign with the slogan “Alles ist möglich”, the numbers are a breakthrough and a barrier at the same time. In 2021, the party had reached 20.8 percent in Sachsen-Anhalt; now it is more than doubling that result. The CDU, by contrast, falls from 37.1 percent in 2021 to 18.4 percent, a collapse that ends any easy talk of holding the old center together.
In Magdeburg, a CDU-SPD-FDP coalition currently governs, but the projection makes that formula impossible to repeat. Even a black-red-green option would not be enough. The remaining parties that are sure to enter the Landtag reject any coalition or cooperation with the AfD, and the AfD rejects cooperation with them as well. That leaves a chamber where the biggest winner has the fewest workable partners.
The deadlock is sharper because the AfD is not just chasing power; it is seeking a sole government. The Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz has classified it as securely far-right since 2023, a designation the party is challenging in proceedings now on hold. If it were to govern Sachsen-Anhalt, it would be the first time in the history of the Bundesrepublik that a party classified in that way ran a state government. Yet the projection also points to the one hurdle the AfD has not cleared: strength enough to win, not enough, so far, to rule alone.
The vote was also watched beyond Sachsen-Anhalt, which only adds weight to the numbers in Magdeburg. The party’s rise has already reshaped the political map; what comes next is whether the final seat count gives it an outright majority or forces a search for an arrangement that no one in the projected Landtag currently wants.
