AfD launches Saxony-Anhalt election campaign with 3,000 supporters in Magdeburg, targets 45 percent vote share

Rally inside the exhibition hall

Around 3,000 AfD supporters filled a Magdeburg exhibition hall on Saturday, 18 July 2026, for the party's official campaign launch ahead of the Saxony-Anhalt state election on 6 September. Up to 15,000 additional viewers watched via livestream, according to one report. Spitzenkandidat Ulrich Siegmund told the crowd they were "part of history" and set an electoral target of at least 45 percent, telling supporters he wanted to govern with a stable majority rather than a narrow win. The event also featured speeches by federal co-chair Alice Weidel, state chair Martin Reichardt, deputy state chair Oliver Kirchner, and AfD politicians Hans-Thomas Tillschneider and Dennis Hohloch.

Dear people, you are such a wonderful audience. And I can already say, before I have even started speaking: I love you.

Weidel painted her party as being on the verge of a political breakthrough. She accused the federal government of having led Germany into a deep crisis and promised a "normalisation" of politics. Her economic and energy policy platform drew the loudest applause: abolishing energy taxes and VAT on fuels, returning to nuclear power, and sourcing oil and gas "where it is cheapest." On foreign policy, she called for "a balance between West and East," renewed dialogue with Russia, the United States, and China, and an end to German weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Weidel also demanded fundamental EU reform, insisting Germany must refuse directives from Brussels, including the ban on combustion engines.

We want the sovereignty of the fatherlands.

Attacks on the CDU and security services

Speakers directed their sharpest criticism at the CDU. Siegmund accused the Union of pursuing "left-green policy" and having abandoned its conservative profile. Oliver Kirchner went further, equating Chancellor Friedrich Merz's policies with those of former East German leader Walter Ulbricht. He drew a parallel between the CDU's "Brandmauer" (firewall) against cooperation with the AfD and the former inner-German border, including its self-shooting devices. Kirchner called Merz "the brother in spirit of Walter Ulbricht." Weidel also attacked domestic security agencies, pledging to abolish the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz) if the AfD enters government. The Saxony-Anhalt branch of the party is classified by that same agency as a confirmed right-wing extremist organisation.

I can no longer see any difference in the conduct of a Friedrich Merz and Walter Ulbricht.

Counter-protest outside the venue

Several hundred people demonstrated against the AfD event at a distance from the exhibition hall, with the area cordoned off by police. The protest was organised by the alliance Bündnis Solidarisches Magdeburg and drew up to 300 participants, including members of Omas gegen Rechts (Grandmas against the Right), representatives of the cultural sector, and church groups. A speaker for the Evangelical Church in Central Germany said the demonstrators were standing up for values such as democracy, humanity, and solidarity, and wanted to show resolve where those values come under attack.

Polling and the path to a majority

Recent polls put the AfD at 41 to 42 percent in Saxony-Anhalt, clearly ahead of the CDU at around 23 percent. The current state government is a coalition of CDU, SPD, and FDP under CDU Minister-President Sven Schulze. Because several smaller parties are struggling to clear the 5 percent threshold, even an absolute majority of seats for the AfD is now considered possible. Siegmund noted that thousands of supporters from across Germany had registered to campaign in the state, and claimed that more women than men now donate to the party. He highlighted a EUR 5,000 donation from a CDU district councillor in Saxony-Anhalt.

Not 44, not 43 percent (I want to govern stably).

Programme and attendees

Among those present was Hans-Georg Maaßen, the former president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. AfD supporters interviewed outside the venue cited stopping immigration, abolishing public broadcasting licence fees (GEZ-Gebühren), and ending aid to Ukraine as priorities. The party's 100-day programme, as reported by one outlet, includes deportations "from minute one," compulsory labour for asylum seekers and refugees, special school classes for refugee children, and a requirement that schools present the "normal family consisting of man and woman" as a model and educate children "in the spirit of love for people and homeland."