A country divided: Five key takeaways from the German election

1. Voters are unsure about how Merz will lead

Merz’s conservative alliance turned in its second poorest performance since the second world war with just 29%. It was enough to soundly beat the AfD, however, which came in second on 21%. Together with the SPD on 16%, his coalition would have a wafer-thin majority of 328 seats in the 630-seat parliament.

But compared with many of his predecessors, including the unpopular Scholz, Merz has failed to convince many voters he has the right stuff to govern Germany.

A poll by opinion research institute Infratest dimap showed that only 43% thought Merz was chancellor material, with just 35% approving of his work in politics to date. Scholz, by contrast, began his term in December 2021 with a 66% approval rating as he took over from veteran leader Angela Merkel, whom voters re-elected three times.

Analysts put the gap down to Merz’s more sharp-tongued, divisive style and his controversial decision to seek support from the AfD in January on hardline immigration-curbing measures before parliament.

Critics said he was shattering a taboo while Merz had called his stance on migration “uncompromising” – something that might not bode well for the coalition talks ahead.

The far-left Linke, which was the most strident in condemning Merz’s risky gambit, pulled a surprising 8.8% – nearly twice their previous share.

2. The divisions between east and west appear to be growing, not diminishing, 35 years after reunification.

One look at the electoral map shows a Germany still divided.

The ex-communist eastern states appear as a sea of blue representing direct mandates for the hard-right AfD, while the former West Germany is awash in CDU/CSU black dotted with flecks of red for the SPD and green for the ecologist Greens.

In eastern states such as Saxony and Brandenburg, the AfD was able to strongly improve on its 2021 result to capture about one-third of the vote, with boosts of nearly 13 points and more than 14 points respectively.

In both regions, the AfD chapters have been classified by domestic security authorities as extremist organisations seeking to undermine the constitutional order.

Exit polls showed that across Germany, the party was able to poach support from across the political spectrum to achieve the strongest outcome for a far-right party since the Nazi period. The CDU/CSU was hit particularly hard, ceding more than 1 million voters across the country to the far right.

3. Young voters continue to drift to the political fringes

Germans under 35 have been expressing frustration with the mainstream parties at the ballot box for some time, capturing headlines during last June’s European elections when the AfD made big unexpected gains among first-time voters.

Crime and immigration, street bullying, the soaring cost of housing and fears of military conscription if Germany goes to war all arise as issues driving younger Germans away from the centre.

At this election, in the 25-34 age bracket, the AfD came out on top with 22%, ahead of CDU/CSU on 18%, and the Greens and the far-left Linke at 16% each.

The Linke, meanwhile, campaigned hard on a tax-the-rich message focused on fighting poverty and capping rents that appealed to the youngest voters.

The party, which also made effective use of social media platforms such as TikTok to ram home its anti-Merz message, won among the 18-24 set with 25% of the vote, ahead of the AfD at 21% and CDU/CSU on 13%.

Germans 70 and up were most likely to reject the AfD, which won just 10% in that cohort.

In both the lagging east and the rust belts of the west, the AfD made particularly big strides among working-class voters – long seen as the Social Democrats’ key base. AfD support surged 17 points among workers to 38%, while the SPD haemorrhaged 14 points to land on just 12%.

A gender divide was also clearly visible, with women more likely to support left-leaning parties and men drawn to the right. The AfD, for example, won 23% of men but only 17% of women while the SPD and the Linke claimed 18% and 11% of women’s votes respectively, compared with 15% and 7% of men’s.

Rural regions tended to go to the conservatives and the AfD while cities had the strongest support for the Greens and the Linke, which won the most votes in the capital, Berlin.

4. Most Germans reject the AfD but they do want action on migration

Despite its record showing, 70% of voters told Infratest dimap they don’t want to see the AfD in government. The figure was even higher – 74% – in a separate poll by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen.

That said, on the party’s signature issue of curbing immigration, many Germans say they agree that the country’s border policy since Angela Merkel allowed in 1.3 million new arrivals a decade ago has been too lax.

Although Merkel left office in 2021 and Merz has long sharply criticised her stance, 54% of voters still see their CDU/CSU as responsible for “why so many refugees and asylum seekers have come to Germany”, according to Infratest dimap.

But while 64% of Germans say they back Merz’s tougher line on slowing irregular immigration, Merz’s overture to the far right to win backing for stricter border measures did nothing to boost his party beyond the 30% it consistently attracted in the polls.

5. Ukraine matters more than Musk and Vance

Another high-profile development during the campaign was the vocal backing from the Tesla tycoon, Elon Musk, and later the US vice-president, JD Vance, for the AfD. However, their interference – branded as “brazen” by Merz – failed to move the needle in voters support.

The party, having seen a boost from late 2023 thanks to concerns about crime, immigration and high energy costs, remained pegged on about 20% throughout the campaign.

Stark differences over Ukraine between the AfD’s candidate Alice Weidel, who called for lifting EU sanctions against Moscow and a resumption of Russian gas imports, and Merz’s staunch backing for Kyiv appeared to play a bigger role.

With support for Ukraine in Trump’s Washington now called into question, Merz remained vocal throughout the campaign that Germany, Ukraine’s second-biggest weapons supplier after the United States, must remain steadfast.

He wrote on X on Monday that “more than ever, we must put Ukraine in a position of strength”. He added that “for a fair peace, the country that is under attack must be part of peace negotiations”.