Turnout: 76.20%
About this election
The 2017 German federal election was held on 24 September 2017 to elect the members of the 19th Bundestag. Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU (the "Union") remained the largest force and she won a fourth term, but the election was a watershed: both big parties recorded their worst results in decades, and the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) entered the Bundestag for the first time, becoming the third-largest party and the first openly nationalist party in the federal parliament since the 1950s. Turnout rose to 76.2%.
Germany elects its federal parliament, the Bundestag, by mixed-member proportional representation. Each voter casts two votes: a first vote (Erststimme) for a local candidate in one of 299 constituencies, elected by first-past-the-post, and a second vote (Zweitstimme) for a party list in their state. It is the second vote that matters most: it determines each party's overall share of seats, with the constituency winners filling part of that quota and party lists filling the rest. A party must clear 5% of the national vote, or win three constituencies, to share in the proportional distribution. Because the system corrects for any imbalance with "overhang" and "levelling" seats, the 2017 Bundestag swelled to 709 members — far above the nominal 598. The figures shown here are the second vote (Zweitstimme).
German politics had long been anchored by two big-tent parties — the centre-right CDU/CSU and the centre-left SPD — flanked by the liberal FDP, the Greens, and the socialist Left. The CDU/CSU is in fact an alliance of two parties: the CSU stands only in Bavaria, the CDU everywhere else. The 2013–2017 term had been governed by a CDU/CSU–SPD "grand coalition", and the dominant issue of the campaign was Merkel's 2015 decision to admit more than a million refugees and asylum seekers, which had fuelled the rise of the AfD.
The Union won 32.93% of the second vote and 246 seats; the SPD slumped to 20.51% and 153, its worst result in the post-war era to that point. The AfD took 12.64% and 94 seats, the FDP returned to parliament with 10.75% and 80 after being wiped out in 2013, the Left won 9.24% and 69, and the Greens 8.94% and 67. With the SPD initially refusing another grand coalition, Merkel first attempted a "Jamaica" coalition with the FDP and Greens.
The Union led the second vote in almost every state, from Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg to North Rhine-Westphalia. The exceptions told the story of the night: the SPD held the city-state of Bremen, while the AfD won the second vote in Saxony — the first time the party topped a state — underlining the east-west divide that would deepen over the following years. The map above shows the party that won the second vote in each of the 16 states; click any state for the full breakdown.
The Jamaica talks collapsed in November 2017 when the FDP walked out, plunging Germany into months of uncertainty. Eventually the SPD agreed to renew the grand coalition, and Merkel was re-elected chancellor in March 2018 — but the long, difficult negotiations and the SPD's reluctance signalled the exhaustion of the old two-party model. Merkel announced she would not seek another term, setting in motion the succession that would shape the 2021 election.
Die Bundeswahlleiterin (Federal Returning Officer) — official results at bundeswahlleiterin.de.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.