Bundestag election 2025: This is how people with a migration background choose

How do people with a migration background choose? The German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DEZIM) has now found this out. Result: Many voters with a migration background trust parties from the spectrum of center-links. The Union only has a relatively good stand with immigrants from the former Soviet Union and their descendants.

In people from Turkey or Arab world as well as the EU, the SPD therefore has the highest potential for election. The AfD cuts off the worst in all three groups of origin. In general, however, there is a potential for voters in all groups of origin, emphasized Friederike Römer’s co-author. “No clear party preference can be derived from the region of origin”.

The left and the alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) have more voter potential in all groups viewed by the scientists with foreign origin than among voters without an immigration history. With one exception: people with roots in Russia or other areas of the ex-Soviet Union have a little less confidence in the party DIE LINKE.

As a person with a migration background in the sense of the study, people who have a parent who was born without German citizenship are considered.

According to the media service, according to the media service, around 7.1 million of those entitled to vote in Germany have an immigration history – that is, they themselves or both parents have immigrated. That is around 12 percent of all voters in the Bundestag election. Of the 7.1 million, two million people have an immigration history from the EU, around 2.3 million a post -Sovietian, so there are late repatriates and their descendants. Turkish roots have around one million people.

The most pressing political problems for the respondents were also analyzed. It emerged that the concerns of the eligible voters are similar. The weakening German economy and inflation are currently the number one problem area for Germans with and without an immigration history.

The second important problem describes people from Turkey/Arab region and the former Soviet Union. The topic of migration was in second place for the without a migration background and that with EU background.

People with a migration background believe less often than those without the appropriate background that the parties can solve the most important political problems. “The parties tend to be perceived as less competent,” said Römer. In the study, the researchers therefore recommend that the parties take the diverse problems of people with a migration background seriously and to address them in a targeted manner.

The data also show that people with a migration background particularly often fear that they become victims of a crime. According to the authors, the material living conditions also play a role in this: “Precarious economic environments and a lack of living space are often associated with a higher crime rate,” says the study.

The Middle East conflict is also one of the topics that people with migration history have recently worried. This conflict is often viewed from a different perspective by people from Turkey and the Arab world from a different perspective than by Germans without foreign ancestors. He is very concerned about 42.7 percent of people surveyed with roots abroad. It is 34.8 percent for people without a migration background.

The data source for the study is the Dezim.Panel, for which 2689 people with and without a migration background were interviewed from December 2023 to March 2024. In order to determine the voter potential, the respondents were asked to indicate how likely it is that they would vote for a party.

For this there was a scale of 1 (“would certainly not choose party”) to 7 (“would certainly choose party”). The researchers then compared the values ​​between people without a migration background and groups with different immigration history.