Up against the CDU – that’s why the AfD and BSW are so strong

On Sunday, Saxony will elect a new state parliament: AfD and BSW in particular are doing significantly better there than the national average. How can this be explained?

The CDU and the AfD are fighting for election victory this Sunday: polls see the two parties in a neck-and-neck race ahead of the state election. And the election has another surprise in store: the new Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) could immediately become the third strongest party – like the AfD, it presents itself as an alternative to the established parties.

The results of the survey also show how different Saxony is compared to the rest of Germany. Because across the country both parties are far below the Saxon values. How can this be explained? Deeper insight is provided by data that the Sinus Institute gathered together with its partner MB Micromarketing for the population in Thuringia and is available online.

The organization works with ten so-called sinus milieus, which are among the most important methods of target group research. As well as a person’s economic status, milieu also includes their worldview: are they more traditional or progressive? Two examples that play an important role in Saxony:

Both milieus are significantly more prominent in Saxony than the German average. The graphic shows that groups representing the middle and lower income classes economically and more traditional views socially are more strongly represented in Saxony. In contrast, high income and very progressive milieus are significantly underrepresented.

In addition to those already mentioned, two other milieu stand out in Saxony. First, that Traditional middlewhich mainly consists of the older generation who love security and order and are stuck in a petty-bourgeois world or traditional working class culture. That’s what comes with it uncertain milieuthe Sinus Institute describes it as the lowest class that strives for orientation and participation, in which a feeling of being left behind and bitterness prevails.

For comparison, the following graphic shows the distribution of the milieus in Germany as a whole, including descriptions of the individual areas:

According to the researchers at the Sinus Institute, the Saxon distribution also explains the success of the AfD and the BSW. Because the parties receive different responses in the milieus: “The AfD is elected above average in lower middle class milieus, but also in the centrist milieus,” says Tim Gensheimer of the Sinus Institute t- online.

BSW also does relatively well in three of these bills: the traditional, the insecure and the nostalgic bourgeois. The following graphic shows where these three milieus are particularly well represented in Saxony:

But do the AfD and BSW have the same potential for voters in Thuringia? “AfD and BSW, starting from different starting points, are increasingly popular in all three milieus,” Gensheimer said. “However, the AfD achieves significantly higher proportions than BSW.”

The parties therefore compete for voters in a similar environment. Only election night will show whether BSW manages to win over many voters from the AfD. During the European elections, the alliance gathered many more former SPD and Left voters.