“You won’t only change Saxony and Thuringia’s future, but bring political change across Germany!” On the morning of Sunday’s elections, Alternative für Deutschland co-chair Alice Weidel had a clear message: the vote in these former Eastern states is a chance to send a message to the national as a whole.
In this regard, she was surely right. In both contests, the AfD took almost one-third of the vote. In Thuringia, it came in first place, the first such victory for a nationalist party in the Federal Republic’s history. In Saxony, it was only just edged out by the Christian Democrats, who head national polls ahead of the 2025 federal election.
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