In the 2024 European elections, the political fringes made significant gains, while the center parties suffered losses. The most successful were the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the newly founded Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), which participated in an election for the first time. The Union managed to hold its ground in the center, while the SPD recorded its worst result.
An analysis of voter migrations by Infratest dimap shows where the new voters for AfD and BSW came from. According to this, the Union benefited from former supporters of the traffic light coalition: 1.45 million votes came from the SPD, 1.09 million from the FDP, and 560,000 from the Greens. Additionally, 40,000 voters shifted from the Left Party to the Union. At the same time, the Union lost 260,000 votes to the BSW and 570,000 to the AfD. A total of 1.3 million former Union voters decided not to vote this time.
The AfD gained votes not only from the Union but also additional support from the camps of the SPD (570,000) and FDP (430,000), but lost 160,000 voters to the BSW and 380,000 to non-voters.
The SPD and the Greens were among the biggest losers in the election. The SPD lost nearly 1.5 million votes to the Union, over half a million to the AfD and the BSW. The SPD lost the most votes to the non-voter camp, a total of over 2.5 million votes. For the Greens, most of the vote losses went to the Union and the non-voters. However, they were able to gain 80,000 votes from the SPD.
The FDP also gained 120,000 votes from the SPD and 30,000 from the Greens, but lost over a million voters to the Union and almost as many to non-voters.
The alliance of Sahra Wagenknecht mainly fished in the camp of former SPD and Left Party voters and received 580,000 and 470,000 votes respectively.
Among the age groups, the Union (CDU/CSU) and SPD mainly scored with older voters. The CDU/CSU received 46 percent of the votes from those over 70 years old, but only 17 percent from those aged 16 to 24. The SPD got 23 percent among the older voters, but only 9 percent among the young.
The Greens managed to secure 15 percent of the votes among 25- to 34-year-olds, while the AfD got 18 percent and the Union got 19 percent. Among 16- to 24-year-olds, the Union and AfD reached 17 and 16 percent respectively, while the Greens received only 11 percent.
The voting behavior of women and men differed little, except for the AfD, which had significantly more male voters: 19 percent of men voted for the AfD, but only 12 percent of women.
