The Alternative Für Deutschland (AfD) gained the largest share of the vote for a party outside of the big three of the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU), Social Democrats (SPD) or Liberals (FDP) in a Bundestag election since 1949.
Much of this seems to be down to the AfD becoming a lightning rod for voters habitually disinclined to support mainstream politics. A quarter of its 5.9 million votes came from people who did not vote in the last election. Another 730,000 came from the other smaller parties that traditionally do not get into parliament.
However, the nationalists also took a million voters from the centre right CDU/CSU coalition (also called the Union). The most extreme example of this was in Saxony, in the east of the country, where the AfD were the fourth biggest party in the popular vote 2013, but leapfrogged ahead of the Union into first this time round.
The other party to suffer from the AfD’s eastern success was Die Linke, the left-wing successor to the old east German Social Unity Party (SED). One in 10 voters who backed Die Linke in 2013, switched to the AfD this time round, which, proportionally was the biggest loss of any party to the nationalists.
Who are these voters though? While support from the AfD comes from a broad section of society, the exit poll data showed that they are more likely to be male than female, to work in a manual job rather than in the office and to be neither particularly young (under 30) or old over 60). Indeed, their strongest support came from voters aged between 30 and 45.
Where did voters from the Union go?
Despite coming in first place the Christian Democrats suffered their worst electoral result since 1949. We have already noted that a significant number switched to the AfD, but even more went to the resurgent pro-business Frei Demokratische Partei (FDP).
The FDP, led by Christian Lindner, have not had any MPs after a disastrous election result in 2013 where they failed to get 5% after spending four years as a junior coalition partner to the CDU or CSU. Around a third of their voters this time round voted for the Union in the last election.
Unfortunately for the SPD, that traditional post-coalition drop in the vote seems to have hit them hard. Their voters migrated in all different directions, 760,000 going to environmentalists Die Grüne, 700,000 to Die Linke and over 500,000 to both the AfD and the FDP.
One of the biggest problems for the SPD is that, just like the CDU, its electoral base is getting older. Indeed, seven percent of voters who backed the two biggest parties in 2013 have since died. The demographic profile of both parties’ voters is pretty similar - they perform better among over 60s and non-graduates, for example. However, despite the CDU performing worse in 2017 than 2013 across all demographic groups, the Social Democrats still failed to make any ground anywhere.
Who did first-time voters back?
If only the votes of first-time voters counted then we would have a significantly different picture this morning. The potential “Jamaica” coalition government of the CDU/CSU, Die Grüne and the FDP would be much more even, for one. Among newly eligible voters who took part in the election, the CDU got 24,5% support, the FDP 12.2% and Die Grune 16.3%. This compares with their actual results of 32.9%, 10.7% and 8.9%.
The AfD also would not have performed as strongly. Just 6.6% of first time voters that turned out backed the nationalists, instead of the 13.3% they got from all voters.
Around a third of people who could have voted in this election for the first time, opted not too.
