State elections in the East: Election campaign in Thuringia and Saxony enters the final stretch

Shortly before the state elections, the ZDF Politbarometer Extra sees the AfD as the strongest force in Thuringia – in Saxony, the CDU can expect to win the election. This is the result of the new survey by the research group Wahlen, published in the “heute journal”. New state parliaments will be elected in both federal states on Sunday.

This Friday, the parties will once again be campaigning vigorously for approval. Top politicians from the federal parties will also be travelling to both states for final rallies. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is expected to attend the final campaign of the Saxon Social Democrats in Chemnitz together with SPD top candidate Petra Köpping.

Survey: AfD ahead of CDU in Thuringia – second in Saxony

In Thuringia, according to the ZDF political barometer, the AfD is at 29 percent, clearly in first place, ahead of the CDU with 23 percent and the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) coalition with 18 percent. The Left, whose prime minister is Bodo Ramelow, is at 13 percent. The SPD could receive 6 percent, and the Greens could miss out on a place in the state parliament with 4 percent. The other parties would have a total of 7 percent, and there is no party that would achieve at least three percent.

“This means that a coalition of the CDU, BSW and SPD would currently have a narrow majority, but other coalitions that have not been ruled out would not,” it said. According to the information, purely mathematically, coalitions of the AfD and CDU as well as the AfD and BSW would have a majority, but so would one of the CDU, BSW and the Left. However, such options were ruled out by either the CDU or the BSW. However, according to the survey, 29 percent of respondents are currently not sure who they want to vote for or whether they want to vote.

CDU maintains lead over AfD in Saxony

In Saxony, the CDU, headed by Michael Kretschmer, is at 33 percent, well ahead of the AfD at 30 percent. According to the survey, the Left Party would not be represented in the state parliament with 4 percent – the Greens and the SPD would each get 6 percent. The BSW is at 12 percent in the survey. The other parties together received 9 percent – among them is no party that would achieve at least 3 percent.

“In addition to the continuation of the government of the CDU, Greens and SPD, there would also be an equally narrow majority for an alliance of the CDU and BSW,” the election researchers said. This would also be enough for a coalition of the CDU and AfD, but the CDU ruled this out. But even in Saxony, 24 percent of those surveyed are currently not sure who or whether they want to vote for.

Party preferences hardly changed – despite Solingen

The values ​​for the individual parties have hardly changed since the Politbarometer of August 23rd – even though the new survey was carried out after the suspected Islamist attack in Solingen. On Friday evening, an attacker killed three people with a knife and injured eight others at a town festival. The suspected perpetrator is 26-year-old Syrian Issa Al H., who is in custody in Düsseldorf.

Election polls are generally always subject to uncertainty. Among other things, declining party ties and increasingly short-term voting decisions make it more difficult for opinion research institutes to weight the data collected. In principle, polls only reflect the opinion at the time of the survey and are not predictions of the election outcome.

Forsa boss: Uncertainty ahead of elections in Saxony and Thuringia

According to opinion researcher Manfred Güllner, the outcome of the elections in Saxony and Thuringia is unusually difficult to predict. The influence of the terrorist attack in Solingen on the results of individual parties on Sunday is unclear, said the founder of the Forsa Institute on Thursday at a panel discussion organized by the German Press Agency in Berlin. “We are already facing great uncertainty.”

Both state premiers – Ramelow in Thuringia and Kretschmer in Saxony – are very popular. This also applies to supporters of other parties, but they do not vote for the incumbents. “This is a situation, a decision matrix, that we are not used to in the old federal states,” said Güllner. “In any case, this creates great uncertainty as to whether the moods that we measure before the election will also be reflected in votes.” If in doubt, one really has to wait for the election result, “perhaps also the final result, in order to know which coalitions are even possible.”

“Considerations on tactical or strategic voting”

Dresden political scientist Hans Vorländer expressed the expectation that the CDU could score points in Saxony with the migration debate. On the one hand, CDU federal leader Friedrich Merz gives the impression that he is taking the initiative. On the other hand, Saxony’s Prime Minister Kretschmer has always set the agenda himself. “If I’m not very much mistaken, that will pull the CDU up a bit again,” said Vorländer. “Whether it will be enough for it to become stronger than the AfD is another question.”

This year there are a particularly large number of undecided voters, said the long-time researcher at the TU Dresden. And among these voters “there are certainly considerations about tactical or strategic voting”. The question is whether the CDU should be made the strongest force or whether the Greens and SPD should be helped to enter the Saxon state parliament “so that the CDU is not embarrassed to enter into talks with BSW”.