Berlin is heading towards one of its most fragmented elections since reunification, with the radical-left Die Linke (The Left) and hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) surging as establishment parties that have dominated the capital for decades lose ground.
A Forsa poll published by t-online on Saturday put Die Linke first on 22 per cent, four points ahead of both the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and AfD on 18 per cent. Die Grünen (Greens) stand at 16 per cent and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) at just 12, while Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW and the liberal-centrist Free Democratic Party (FDP) would miss the five per cent threshold.
Berliners, therefore, go to the polls on 20 September to elect the new legislature of the German capital in a political landscape dramatically different from the last time they voted in the 2023 repeat election. Then, the CDU won 28.2 per cent and the SPD 18.4, giving the two parties that now govern Berlin a combined 46.6 per cent. Die Linke and AfD together had only 21.3 per cent. Forsa now puts the CDU and SPD at 30 per cent combined, while Die Linke and AfD reach 40 per cent.
Die Linke and AfD combined support reaches 40 per cent according to the latest poll by Forsa. GRAPHIC: Hungarian Conservative
The dynamics suggest that Berlin, fitting into a broader nationwide and increasingly Europe-wide pattern, is pulling towards the anti-establishment extremes on both left and right while the mainstream political centre shrinks between them.
Putting the numbers on a map makes the divide even more interesting. Berlin remains internationally associated with the progressive, multicultural inner districts of Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain, Neukölln and Mitte. However, that is only one side of the story.
A Tagesspiegel analysis of the 2025 federal election found AfD support at just 7.1 per cent inside the S-Bahn Ring, against 18.3 per cent outside it. The party was also 7.6 points stronger in former East Berlin than in the former West. In outer eastern Marzahn-Hellersdorf, the AfD won 31.2 per cent of second votes in 2025, up 13.9 points, while Gottfried Curio secured its first direct Bundestag constituency in Berlin.
‘Nearly four decades after the Berlin Wall divided the city physically, a different set of political borders is becoming visible’
Nearly four decades after the Berlin Wall divided the city physically, a different set of political borders is becoming visible, not necessarily, but partly overlapping with the East-West cleavage: a heavily progressive inner city and a more conservative, increasingly pro-AfD outer Berlin.
According to a BerlinTrend poll published in July, in East Berlin, Die Linke and AfD were tied for first on 22 per cent each. In the West, the CDU and Greens shared the lead on 20 per cent. The former eastern half is therefore not simply moving right. It is becoming a centre of two very different forms of anti-establishment politics.
Berliners consider rents and housing among the top issues that will decide the upcoming election. That inevitably puts the more socially focused Die Linke in an advantageous position, as much of its policy platform focuses on these issues. The party promises tighter rent controls and legislation to transfer large private housing companies into public ownership, building on the 2021 referendum backing such a policy.
The AfD, both in Berlin and nationally, puts immigration and security at the top of its agenda, issues traditionally less attractive in a multicultural capital; yet it has successfully connected them directly to the housing issue. Its programme specifically includes priority in subsidized housing for people born in Berlin, coupled with a stop to asylum reception, a state office with an explicit ‘remigration’ mandate, faster deportations of foreign criminals, more police and greater surveillance in high-crime areas.
The party’s strongest support is in the outer districts, particularly in the east, where migration, public order, housing pressure and distrust of the CDU and SPD have become potent political issues.
‘Berliners consider rents and housing among the top issues that will decide the upcoming election’
While their programmes are sharply different, both AfD and Die Linke benefit from the latter. The SPD, continuously in Berlin’s government since 1989, is polling at just 12 per cent, a level that would mark a historic collapse in one of its traditional strongholds. The CDU’s 2023 breakthrough has also largely evaporated, with the party down more than ten points from its election result. The latest Forsa survey consequently leaves the governing parties behind both Die Linke and the combined strength of the two anti-establishment poles.
The AfD’s advance is also part of a national trend that has increasingly broken out of its traditional eastern strongholds. In North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous western state, the party more than tripled its support to 16.5 per cent in the September 2025 local elections. This March, it nearly doubled its vote in Baden-Württemberg to 18.8 per cent, gaining 9.1 points, before reaching 19.5 per cent in Rhineland-Palatinate two weeks later—an 11.2-point increase and its best-ever result in a western German state election.
The east, however, remains the AfD’s centre of gravity. Recent polls put it at around 41 per cent in Saxony-Anhalt and 36 per cent in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ahead of their September elections, while it is polling at 40 per cent in Thuringia. Surveys across eastern Germany consistently place it far ahead of the established parties. Nationally, virtually all major pollsters now put the AfD at 27–28.5 per cent, comfortably ahead of the CDU/CSU in most surveys.
Berlin remains markedly less favourable terrain, which makes support approaching one fifth of voters in a traditionally liberal, multicultural capital all the more significant.
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