anti-immigration populist right AfD doubles seats in key German state election | Eastern NC Now

The first of the German state elections  set this year happened Sunday in the southwestern German state of Baden- Wurrtemberg, and both major parries on the right gained seats, while those on the left lost seats.  The biggest winner of the day was the populist nationalist anti-immigration Alternativ fuir Deutschland (AfD), which doubled its vote and more than doubled its seats.

AfD went from 17 seats in the last election to 35 in the new state parliament.  It's vote share went from 9.7% to 18.8%.  The traditional conservative Christian Democrats also posted gains, going from 42 seats to 56 and from 24.1% to 29.7%

Meanwhile, parties of the left were losing ground.  The Social Democrats lost half of their vote and almost half of their seats, falling from 19 seats to 10, with their vote share dropping from 11.0% to 5.5%  The Green Party saw a more modest drop, from 58 seats to 56, and vote share dropping from 32.6% to 30.2%.

The far left Left Party and the pro-business Free Democrats failed to pass the 5% threshold to win any seats, each receiving 4.4% of the vote.

Unfortunately, while these results should usher in a conservative coalition of the CDU and AfD, which would have a solid majority, because the CDU refuses to work with the AfD, it will likely produce an odd-couple government led by the Greens with the CDU as coalition partner.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news-corner/afd-emerges-strong-baden-wurttemberg-state-elections/

https://amgreatness.com/2026/03/10/the-global-elites-lose-again/

The next German state to vote this year will be the northwestern state of Rheinland Palantinate, which will vote March 22, and polls there are showing AfD also more than doubling its seats and votes and running third.  They show the CDU ousting the governing Social Democrats for the lead party.  They also show a second populist anti-immigration party of the right, the Free Voters winning seats.

Upcoming will be elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpompern, where the AfD has a wide lead in the polls over all other parties.  The left-leaning capital state of Berlin will also be voting this year, and even there, polls are showing significant AfD gains.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Austria, the latest poll shows the populist nationalist anti-immigration Freedom Party increasing its lead over all other parties.  The latest poll shows the Freedom Party at 35.7% (an increase of 6.8 points), followed by the traditional conservative Austrian Peoples Party at 21.9% (a loss of 4.4 points), the center-left Social Democrats at 17.8% (a loss of 3.3 points), the far left Green Party at 10.3% and the liberal NEOS Party at 8.5%.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news-corner/austria-freedom-party-surge-right-wing-populist-anti-immigration-growing-support/