NIn addition to the European elections, local elections were also held in eight federal states. The counting process can take several days. The first results were received for district council and mayoral elections.
All results of the European elections at a glance
Baden-Württemberg: Greens with losses
According to a SWR forecast, the Greens will have to expect losses in the three largest cities in Baden-Württemberg in the local council elections. However, they will fall in Stuttgart, Karlsruhe and Mannheim not as strong as in the European elections. According to forecasts, the CDU could become the strongest force in Stuttgart and Mannheim, and in Karlsruhe the Greens are likely to hold this position despite losses.
Brandenburg: AfD in first place
The AfD has won the local elections in Brandenburg. After all electoral districts had been counted, the AfD received 25.7 percent, as state election director Herbert Trimbach announced on Monday. This is an increase of 9.8 percentage points compared to the election five years ago. The CDU achieved 19.3 percent, the SPD was the third strongest force with 16.6 percent, followed by the Left with 7.8 percent and the Greens with 6.7 percent.
Compared to the 2019 local elections The AfD was able to gain a significant 9.8 percentage points and became the strongest force in a local election in Brandenburg for the first time. The CDU gained one point. The biggest losers were the Left Party, which lost 6.3 percent and received 7.8 percent of the vote. The Greens lost 4.4 percentage points and the SPD 1.1 percentage points. The FDP received 3.2 percent, 1.8 percentage points less than in 2019. The Free Voters achieved 7.4 percent, 1.1 points more than in 2019. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) did not run under this name in the local elections, but locally with other alliances.
The stronghold of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) was the Spree-Neisse districtwhere the party achieved its strongest result in Brandenburg. With 38.2 percent, the party received almost twice as many votes in the district as the CDU with 20.1 percent.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: AfD ahead
The AfD has displaced the CDU from the top spot in the local elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, as it did in the European elections. After all 1,978 electoral districts were counted on Monday morning, the AfD received 25.6 percent of the vote. The party has thus almost doubled its share of the vote compared to the previous local elections. With slight losses, the CDU came in second place with 24 percent.
The Left, which was the second strongest party in the local elections five years ago with 16.3 percent, plummeted to 8.8 percent. The SPD also suffered losses, achieving only 12.7 percent instead of 15.4 percent. Wagenknecht’s party BSW achieved 6.1 percent, although it only had a seat for the district councils in three of the six districts and in Rostock candidates into the race. The Greens’ result halved from 10.3 to 5.5 percent. In the municipalities, the FDP is only just ahead of the Free Voters, who received 2.8 percent, with 1.8 percent. Voter turnout was 64.4 percent, higher than in 2019, when it was 57.2 percent.
Saxony-Anhalt: AfD wins in head-to-head race with CDU
After a significant increase in votes, the AfD has won the local elections at district level in Saxony-Anhalt. After the votes were counted in almost all electoral districts by Monday morning, the AfD received 28.1 percent of the votes, putting it ahead of the governing CDU, which received 26.7 percent. For the AfD, this meant a Plus of 11.6 percentage points Compared to the 2019 election, the Christian Democrats gained 2.1 points.
The SPD came in third place with 11.9 percent, a loss of 1.8 points. The Left received 8.3 percent, the Greens 4.5 percent and the FDP 3.4 percent. Various voting groups were able to gain 11.7 percent of the votes.
Saxony: Counting of votes could take until Monday noon
The AfD is also enjoying success in Saxony. The party emerged as the winner of the city council elections in Chemnitz It received 24.3 percent of the votes and thus replaced the CDU as the strongest party. The counts for the local elections In many places, the vote count lasts until late at night because the votes from the European elections were counted first. Some municipalities and districts have announced that not all results will be available overnight and that the counting will continue on Monday morning.
Thuringia: Neo-Nazi fails
Right-wing extremist Tommy Frenck has won the runoff election for the district administrator’s office in the southern Thuringian district Hildburghausen lost. After all 127 voting districts had been counted, Frenck was at 30.5 percent, while the Free Voters candidate Sven Gregor was at 69.5 percent. This meant that Gregor had a clear victory – but at the same time, in the Hildburghausen district, almost one in three voters voted for the right-wing extremist in the runoff election.
Frenck became known nationwide because he organized a series of large neo-Nazi concerts, which also attracted right-wing extremists from other European countries. According to the 2022 Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution report, his voting group “Alliance for the Future of Hildburghausen” developed into the leading neo-Nazi group in the district.
The AfD came away empty-handed in the run-off elections for district administrators. In none of the nine districts in which AfD candidates had reached the second round of voting was it enough for a victory. Altenburg region Incumbent Uwe Melzer (CDU) turned the result from the first round of voting two weeks ago against the AfD candidate Heiko Philipp. In the districts Sömmerda, Eichsfeld, Greiz, Wartburg and Saale-Holzland AfD candidates lost against the CDU competition. In Kyffhäuser District the incumbent SPD district administrator Antje Hochwind-Schneider won the runoff election against the AfD, which also had an impact on the incumbent in the district GothaOnno Eckert (SPD), and in Ilm district for the non-party incumbent Petra Enders.
In Jena Mayor Thomas Nitzsche (FDP) secured re-election. In the runoff election against the Green candidate Kathleen Lützkendorf, the incumbent received 61.6 percent of the vote. Lützkendorf received 38.4 percent.
The office of mayor in Erfurt went to CDU challenger Andreas Horn, who received 64.2 percent of the vote. Andreas Bausewein (SPD) must now vacate his office after 18 years.
Saarland: CDU ahead of SPD
In Saarland, the CDU clearly won the local elections at district level with 34.4 percent of the vote. The Social Democrats, who govern the state, received 29.9 percent, as the state election commission announced on Monday night. For the CDU, this meant an increase of 0.4 percentage points compared to the 2019 election, and for the SPD a decrease of 0.1 points.
The AfD came in third place with 10.4 percent and an increase of 1.9 points, followed by the Greens with 7.3 percent and a decrease of 5.3 points. The Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) coalition, which was running for the first time, received 3.6 percent of the vote, followed by the Left with 4.1 percent and a decrease of 3.4 points and the FDP with 3.9 percent and a decrease of 0.4 points. The Free Voters gained 3.0 points to 3.5 percent.
In addition to the district councils, municipal and local councils were also elected in Saarland. After the first round of numerous mayoral elections as well as several mayoral and district council elections, run-off elections are necessary in some places. There was no mayoral election in the state capital of Saarbrücken.
Hamburg: Counting not until Monday
In Hamburg, in addition to the European elections, district assembly elections also took place on Sunday. The votes for the district elections will not be counted until Monday.
This article will be continuously updated with further results.