Saxony-Anhalt, Germany State election 2026 (Landtagswahl in Sachsen-Anhalt) — Live Results & Map

What is being decided on 6 September

Saxony-Anhalt (Sachsen-Anhalt) elects the ninth Landtag on Sunday 6 September 2026, with polling stations open from 08:00 to 18:00 local time. It is the first of three German state elections in the autumn of 2026 — Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern follow on 20 September — and the first test of the federal coalition formed by Friedrich Merz in 2025. About 1.7 million people are entitled to vote in a state of roughly 2.1 million, and the parliament they elect will choose the next minister-president and govern until 2031.

The stakes are unusually high for a state of this size. Every poll published in the final month of the campaign put the Alternative for Germany (AfD) between 40% and 43% — roughly double its 2021 result and more than fifteen points clear of the Christian Democrats (CDU), who have led every government in Saxony-Anhalt since 2002. No party has ever won a German state election from that position on the far right, and no party has governed with the AfD, which every other party in the Landtag has ruled out as a coalition partner. If the polls are close to right, the arithmetic of forming any government at all becomes the story of the night.

How Saxony-Anhalt elects its Landtag

The system is mixed-member proportional, the same family as the federal Bundestag election but run at state level. Each voter has two votes. The first vote (Erststimme) elects one member in each of the state's 41 constituencies (Wahlkreise) by simple plurality. The second vote (Zweitstimme) is cast for a party's state list, and it is the decisive one: the seats are shared out proportionally among the parties that clear 5% of the second vote, using the Hare/Niemeyer method, with the constituency winners taking up part of each party's entitlement and list candidates filling the rest.

The Landtag has a nominal 83 members, but the total rises when a party wins more constituencies than its proportional entitlement: those overhang seats are then balanced by levelling seats for the others. That is how the parliament elected in 2021 came to have 97 members rather than 83. The figures on this page are the second vote, because that is the number that decides the composition of the chamber.

The parties on the ballot and who leads them

The state electoral committee admitted 15 party lists on 24 July 2026. Eight of them are shown separately on this page — the six that sat in the outgoing Landtag, plus the two newcomers with a realistic claim on the 5% threshold — and the remaining lists are grouped as "Others".

The CDU goes into this election with a new leader. Reiner Haseloff, minister-president since 2011, announced in August 2025 that he would not stand again; the party's state chairman Sven Schulze, economics minister from 2021 to 2025, was chosen as lead candidate in November 2025 with 90.09% and took over as minister-president in January 2026. The AfD is led by Ulrich Siegmund, a member of the Landtag since 2016 and co-leader of its parliamentary group, selected in May 2025 with 98.3% of delegates; the state branch has been classified as "confirmed right-wing extremist" by Saxony-Anhalt's domestic intelligence service since 2023. Die Linke is again led by Eva von Angern, who headed the list in 2021 when the party recorded its worst result in the state. The SPD's lead candidate is Armin Willingmann, minister for science, energy and the environment and first deputy minister-president; the FDP's is the state chairwoman and infrastructure minister Lydia Hüskens; the Greens are led by Susan Sziborra-Seidlitz. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) contests a Saxony-Anhalt state election for the first time, with Claudia Wittig and Thomas Schulze as a joint ticket — the party took 11.3% in the state at the 2025 federal election. The Freie Wähler, on 3.1% in 2021, are standing again.

Where the campaign stood at the close

In 2021 the CDU won 37.1% of the second vote, well ahead of the AfD on 20.8%, with Die Linke on 11.0%, the SPD on 8.4%, the FDP on 6.4% and the Greens on 5.9%. Because a CDU–SPD coalition would have held only 49 of 97 seats, Haseloff formed a three-party "Germany coalition" with the SPD and the FDP, which governed with 56 seats.

Five years later the polls describe a different state. The last survey before polling day, by the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen on 3 September, put the AfD on 41%, the CDU on 23%, Die Linke on 11.5%, the SPD on 8.5%, the Greens on 6%, the BSW on 4%, the FDP on 3% and the rest on 3%. INSA, a day earlier, had the AfD on 43% and the CDU on 22%. Two of the outgoing coalition's three parties — the FDP and, on some numbers, the Greens — were polling below the 5% threshold, which would strip them out of the chamber altogether and concentrate the remaining seats among fewer parties. Polls are not results, and Saxony-Anhalt's 2021 election is the standing reminder: a "neck-and-neck race" between CDU and AfD was widely predicted and the CDU finished sixteen points ahead.

What the figures on this page mean, and when

Counting starts when the polling stations close at 18:00 local time, and the Landeswahlleiterin publishes interim totals from that moment, polling district by polling district, until the provisional state result is complete — usually late in the evening or in the small hours of 7 September. ElectioMap reads that same official open-data file directly and republishes it here, so this page moves in step with the source rather than with a broadcaster's projection. No exit poll, forecast or seat projection appears on this page at any point.

Every figure on this page is a measurement of ballots actually counted, published as it arrives. Vote shares and turnout are both partial while the count runs, and both are shown that way rather than held back: each update states how many of the 2,660 polling districts are in, and the turnout figure is explicitly the turnout in those districts, not yet in the state. The state returning officer's file reports the electorate of the reporting districts alongside their votes, so that percentage is a real participation rate for the area it covers — it will shift as the rest of the state arrives, in the same way the shares will.

One figure is withheld until the count is complete: the strongest party. That is not a measurement but a projection, and Saxony-Anhalt is exactly the sort of state where an early projection misleads — its cities and its rural districts vote very differently, and the small rural districts finish counting first. In the first published batch, twelve districts out of 2,660, the AfD stood at 59.88%; by the time half the state was in, that had fallen below 50%. The lead was real in those twelve districts and told you almost nothing about the result.

Seats are not shown while the count runs. Allocating the Landtag means running Hare/Niemeyer over the parties above 5% and then computing overhang and levelling seats — a calculation ElectioMap would be inventing rather than reporting. The official seat distribution is published separately by the state returning officer and is added here once it exists. The certified final result for the second vote is due to be announced on 22 September 2026.

Reading the district map

The map divides Saxony-Anhalt into its 14 districts — the three urban districts of Magdeburg, Halle (Saale) and Dessau-Roßlau, and eleven rural Landkreise from the Altmarkkreis Salzwedel in the north to the Burgenlandkreis in the south — and colours each by the party leading the second vote there. Click any district for its full party breakdown and, once its count is complete, its turnout. Districts whose polling districts have not yet reported stay neutral rather than being coloured on a handful of ballots. The state is one of the most useful places in Germany to watch this geography: it contains both the old chemical and industrial belt around Halle, Bitterfeld and Leuna and some of the emptiest rural country in the east, and the two have moved apart at every election since 2016.

Where the data comes from

Die Landeswahlleiterin des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt and the Statistisches Landesamt — the official results publication at wahlergebnisse.sachsen-anhalt.de, read from its own open-data file rather than scraped from the page.

Frequently asked questions

When is the Saxony-Anhalt state election and when do results appear?

Sunday 6 September 2026, with polling stations open from 08:00 to 18:00 local time (CEST). Counting begins at 18:00 and the state returning officer publishes running totals from then on; the provisional state-wide result is expected late in the evening or in the early hours of 7 September. This page updates automatically from that official publication.

What is being elected?

The ninth Landtag of Saxony-Anhalt. It has a nominal 83 seats, rising with overhang and levelling seats — the outgoing parliament had 97. The new Landtag elects the minister-president and sits until 2031.

How does the voting system work?

Mixed-member proportional. Each voter has two votes: a first vote (Erststimme) electing one member in each of the 41 constituencies by simple plurality, and a second vote (Zweitstimme) for a party's state list. The second vote is decisive — seats are shared out proportionally by the Hare/Niemeyer method among the parties clearing 5%, with constituency winners filling part of each party's entitlement. The figures on this page are the second vote.

What happened at the last election, in 2021?

The CDU won 37.1% of the second vote, ahead of the AfD on 20.8%, Die Linke on 11.0%, the SPD on 8.4%, the FDP on 6.4% and the Greens on 5.9%. Reiner Haseloff formed a "Germany coalition" of CDU, SPD and FDP holding 56 of the 97 seats. Haseloff is not standing again; Sven Schulze succeeded him as minister-president in January 2026 and leads the CDU list.

Is the turnout figure shown while counting is still under way?

Yes, and it is labelled for what it covers. The state returning officer's file reports the electorate of the reporting polling districts alongside their votes, so the percentage is a genuine participation rate for those districts — not the share of the count completed. It moves as the rest of the state arrives, exactly as the vote shares do, and every update says how many of the 2,660 districts it rests on.

Why is no winner shown until the count is complete?

Because naming a strongest party before the end is a projection rather than a measurement, and Saxony-Anhalt punishes early projections. Its small rural districts finish counting first and vote very differently from Magdeburg and Halle: in the first published batch, twelve districts out of 2,660, the AfD stood at 59.88%, and by the halfway point that had fallen below 50%. The figures were correct at each stage; the conclusion drawn from the early ones would not have been.

Why are no seats shown?

Because allocating them means running the Hare/Niemeyer method over the parties above 5% and then computing overhang and levelling seats, which would be ElectioMap's arithmetic rather than the returning officer's. The official seat distribution is published separately and is added to this page once it exists. The certified final second-vote result is due on 22 September 2026.

Where do these numbers come from?

Directly from Die Landeswahlleiterin des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt and the Statistisches Landesamt, whose official results publication at wahlergebnisse.sachsen-anhalt.de ships the count as an open-data file. ElectioMap reads that file, not a broadcaster's projection: no exit poll or forecast appears on this page.

Compiled and reviewed from official results by ElectioMap. See our data methodology.