Germany’s AfD Landslide: What Happens When Voters Stop Feeling Heard?

Germany’s AfD result in Saxony-Anhalt is the immediate story.

The party received 44.8% of the second vote in the September 2026 state election, more than doubling its 2021 result (State Statistical Office of Saxony-Anhalt, 2026).

But Germany is not an isolated case.

Donald Trump returned to the White House after winning the 2024 US election. Reform UK has become a major political force in Britain. National Rally has expanded its support in France. In Australia, One Nation has experienced a significant resurgence in polling.

These parties are not identical. Their histories, policies and electorates differ considerably.

But the broader pattern is difficult to ignore.

Established political parties across Western democracies are losing voters to populist, nationalist and anti-establishment alternatives.

The more important question may be why.

When a party like AfD receives almost 45% of the vote, the result is often discussed primarily through ideological labels.

But that tells us where votes went.

It does not necessarily explain why they moved.

Voting for a party does not mean endorsing every position that party holds. People vote for many reasons: immigration, cost of living, housing, energy, crime, cultural change, distrust of institutions, dissatisfaction with government or frustration with established political parties.

Research on populist voting consistently finds that immigration attitudes matter, but so do political distrust, alienation and dissatisfaction with institutions (Erisen and Vasilopoulou, 2022; Wilson, 2026).

Sometimes a vote for a challenger is also a vote against a political system the voter believes has stopped listening.

Immigration is perhaps the clearest example.

Supporting lower immigration is not, by itself, evidence of racism.

Every functioning immigration system sets limits somewhere. The real disagreement is over where those limits should sit.

Housing matters. Infrastructure matters. Hospital and school capacity matter. Labour shortages matter. Economic growth matters. Refugee obligations matter. Integration matters.

These are genuine policy trade-offs.

There is obviously some level at which immigration could exceed a country’s ability to provide housing, services and infrastructure.

There is also some level at which restricting it too severely could damage an economy and exclude people who would contribute enormously.

Reasonable people can disagree about where those thresholds sit.

Research also supports distinguishing between immigration scepticism and racial hostility. Rydgren (2008), using European Social Survey data from six Western European countries, found that wanting immigration reduced was a substantially stronger and more consistent predictor of support for populist nationalist parties than measures of xenophobia, such as opposition to having an immigrant as a boss or a family member marrying an immigrant. Concerns linking immigration with crime, social tension and loss of national identity were particularly associated with voting behaviour, while attitudes concerning race, religion, jobs and welfare produced much weaker or less consistent effects. The findings do not suggest that xenophobia is absent from these electorates, but they do challenge the assumption that wanting lower immigration can simply be treated as a proxy for racism (Rydgren, 2008).

That does not mean racism is irrelevant.

It means the categories are not the same.

Suppose someone says:

“I think immigration is too high.”

There are several possible responses.

• Ask why.
• Examine the evidence.
• Challenge assumptions that are wrong.
• Discuss economic benefits.
• Discuss housing and infrastructure capacity.
• Ask what immigration level they would support.

Separate concerns about numbers from attitudes towards migrants themselves.

That is democratic disagreement.

But if the response becomes:

“You’re racist.”

the argument changes.

It is no longer primarily about policy. It becomes a judgement about the person’s character.

And that may matter politically.

Research has found that anti-immigration attitudes are more likely to translate into support for populist parties when combined with anger and low political trust (Erisen and Vasilopoulou, 2022).

That does not prove that political labelling causes people to change their vote.

But it does suggest a plausible problem.

If voters already believe mainstream politics does not listen to them, dismissing their concerns rather than examining them may reinforce that perception.

Eventually, they may find politicians who will listen.

They do not need to agree with everything those politicians believe.

They only need to believe someone is taking their concerns seriously.

This is why Saxony-Anhalt matters beyond Germany.

AfD itself should still be scrutinised.

Its policies should be examined. Its claims should be tested. Its members and statements should be assessed on their merits.

Germany’s domestic intelligence authorities have also classified AfD’s Saxony-Anhalt organisation as extremist. That is relevant when assessing the party itself.

But it does not tell us the motivations or beliefs of every person who voted for it.

That distinction applies elsewhere too.

Trump’s victory cannot be fully explained by applying a single ideological label to more than 77 million Americans.

One Nation’s resurgence cannot be understood by assuming every Australian reconsidering their vote has adopted the entire One Nation worldview.

The same applies to Reform UK and National Rally.

Party classification and voter motivation are different questions.

As support grows, that distinction becomes harder to ignore.

When a movement attracts 2 or 3% of voters, examining its ideological core may explain quite a lot.

When it attracts 20%, 30% or 45%, another question becomes unavoidable:

What is happening in the electorate?

None of this means racism has disappeared.

It has not.

Nor does it mean every concern about immigration is reasonable, every claim is factual or every policy proposed by populist parties deserves support.

Claims should be tested.

Policies should be challenged.

Evidence should matter.

But calling someone racist, bigoted or extremist is not a substitute for demonstrating that their argument is wrong.

And applying those labels too broadly may carry a political cost.

It can reinforce exactly the sentiment these movements thrive upon:

Nobody is listening to us.

The question is not simply:

Why are populist parties gaining support?

A better question may be:

Why are so many voters abandoning established political parties and what are they trying to tell us?

Saxony-Anhalt is the most recent example.

It almost certainly will not be the last.

Erisen, C. and Vasilopoulou, S. (2022) ‘The affective model of far-right vote in Europe: Anger, political trust, and immigration’, Social Science Quarterly, 103, pp. 635–648.

Rydgren, J. (2008) ‘Immigration sceptics, xenophobes or racists? Radical right-wing voting in six West European countries’, European Journal of Political Research, 47(6), pp. 737–765.

State Statistical Office of Saxony-Anhalt (2026) Landtagswahl Sachsen-Anhalt 2026: Ergebnisse Landesebene.

Wilson, J.M. (2026) ‘Immigration, anomie, and national populism in the European Union’, Frontiers in Political Science.