Saxony-Anhalt election: Polls show a broad majority blaming Berlin for AfD result

For a large majority of voters in Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD's performance in the state election reflected dissatisfaction with politics in Berlin. In a Forschungsgruppe Wahlen survey, 88 percent said the AfD would have performed worse if the federal government had governed better.

The judgment crossed party lines. Seventy-five percent of respondents viewed Chancellor Friedrich Merz personally as one cause of the result, including 47 percent of CDU supporters who said he had harmed the party's position.

The findings matched an Infratest dimap voter analysis. Among people who voted CDU five years ago but no longer supported it, 59 percent agreed that the federal government deserved a warning at the state election. That view was most common among AfD voters, at 89 percent, and was held by 41 percent of Left Party voters.

Federal politics drew more irritation than state politics. Fifty-eight percent said they were most annoyed with Merz's CDU, compared with 23 percent who named the SPD and 10 percent who named the CSU. Among AfD voters, 76 percent singled out the CDU.

The federal government was markedly less popular than the state government. Eighty-seven percent said they were dissatisfied with the CDU-SPD coalition, while 11 percent were satisfied. Satisfaction with the state government, made up of the CDU, SPD, Greens and FDP, stood at 31 percent. Half of voters said the federal government mainly made policy for western Germans. Only 9 percent viewed Merz positively in Saxony-Anhalt, compared with 13 percent nationwide.