Germany’s rightist AfD eyes historic breakthrough in state election

Anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party poised for major win in Saxony-Anhalt election, as the party wrestles with its foreign policy positions and relationship to the Trump administration.

By World Israel News Staff

Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is heading into a closely watched state election Sunday with a commanding lead that could put the AfD in control of a German state for the first time, even as the party wrestles with how closely it should align itself with President Donald Trump and the United States.

Polls ahead of the vote in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt put the AfD at roughly 42%, far ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union, which has been polling in the low 20s.

An outright AfD majority would allow the party to form a government without needing coalition partners, potentially making its 35-year-old candidate Ulrich Siegmund the state’s next premier.

Even without a majority, a result above 40% would represent a major political breakthrough for a party that Germany’s established political factions have long sought to isolate.

Other major parties maintain a “firewall” against cooperating with the AfD. That means the party could still be excluded from government if its opponents collectively secure enough seats to assemble an alternative coalition.

Saxony-Anhalt’s current premier, CDU politician Sven Schulze, has described Sunday’s contest as “a decision that will set the course for Germany.”

For the AfD, the election is increasingly viewed as a test case for whether its rapid growth in national polling can be converted into actual governing power.

Siegmund has built his campaign around immigration restrictions, opposition to progressive cultural policies, lower energy costs and dissatisfaction with Germany’s political establishment.

“I want my beautiful, old, safe Germany back,” he has told supporters.

The party has also increasingly looked abroad for political allies, particularly among Trump-aligned conservatives in the United States.

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel met Vice President JD Vance during the Munich Security Conference in 2025 and previously held an online conversation with Elon Musk.

AfD lawmakers have traveled to the United States to cultivate relationships with Republicans and figures in the MAGA movement, while Trump administration officials have criticized efforts by German authorities to politically isolate the party.

Vance used a high-profile Munich speech last year to criticize the political firewall surrounding the AfD, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio denounced a German intelligence determination targeting the party as “tyranny in disguise.”

The relationship, however, has become more complicated as Trump has pursued an increasingly assertive foreign policy.

Within the AfD, admiration for Trump’s immigration policies, nationalism and rejection of progressive politics coexists with opposition to US tariffs and skepticism toward American military intervention abroad.

AfD foreign policy spokesman Markus Frohnmaier has praised Trump’s immigration crackdown while making clear that the party does not regard Washington’s interests as Germany’s own.

“They need to protect American interests, and we’re German, and we try to protect our interests,” Frohnmaier said.

That distinction is particularly important because the AfD has simultaneously cultivated unusually close relations with Russia.

The party opposes further military assistance to Ukraine, wants Western sanctions on Moscow removed and favors rebuilding the economic relationship that once supplied Germany with large quantities of inexpensive Russian energy.

Its Saxony-Anhalt program calls for stronger economic and cultural ties with Russia, including expanded Russian-language education.

Those positions are especially potent in eastern Germany, where political and cultural attitudes toward Moscow often differ sharply from those in the west.

Saxony-Anhalt was part of communist East Germany until reunification in 1990, and Soviet troops maintained a significant presence in the region for decades. Economic frustration following reunification and more recent anger over rising energy costs have helped make rapprochement with Russia politically attractive to some voters.

The AfD’s position puts it directly at odds with Merz’s government, which views Russia as a major security threat, supports Ukraine and has backed a significant expansion of German defense spending.

The disagreement has become even more prominent after Berlin accused Moscow of responsibility for a recent drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport. Russia has denied involvement.

If the AfD takes power in Saxony-Anhalt, it would have little direct control over German foreign policy. But governing a state would give the party a new platform from which to demonstrate how it would exercise power.

State governments oversee areas including schools, policing and cultural policy, potentially allowing the AfD to pursue some of the cultural changes its leaders have championed while using Saxony-Anhalt as a showcase ahead of Germany’s next federal election.

The party itself has framed the election as having national significance. Weidel and fellow co-chair Tino Chrupalla have urged supporters to view Saxony-Anhalt as a chance to demonstrate that the AfD can govern rather than merely protest from the opposition.

Nationally, the party has risen dramatically since its founding in 2013, with particularly strong support across the former East Germany.

A victory Sunday would therefore carry significance well beyond a state of fewer than two million residents.

For the AfD, Saxony-Anhalt could become the first breach in the political firewall that has kept it out of government — and a laboratory for a distinctly German nationalist agenda that borrows heavily from Trump’s political movement while refusing to fully align itself with Washington.