AfD Saxony-Anhalt is a racist extremist group, according to the German state's intelligence agency. The party may well trounce its rivals in this weekend's state election.
Page A3From§Eachthe noon edition — 7 September 2026
Germany's far-right firewall, built to keep AfD out, now waits on one small party's decision to open it.
As it ran on the front
Sunday in Saxony-Anhalt, the Alternative for Germany took 43.8 percent of the vote, more than double the Christian Democrats' 17.2, and positioned itself to be the first far-right party to hold power in a German state since the Nazi era. Nothing about this was hidden. The Washington Examiner previewed the exact scenario on September 2nd, four days before voters went to the polls, calling the possible outcome "without precedent in postwar Germany." Everyone saw the wave coming.
This isn't the first warning shot. In September 2024, AfD finished first in a state election in Thuringia — the first time a far-right party had done that since World War Two. That was two years ago. The result sat there as a fact, and now a second state has gone the same way.…
…(cont) Two days before Saxony-Anhalt's polls closed, CBS reported what the state's own intelligence agency had already concluded: AfD Saxony-Anhalt is a racist extremist group. The Washington Examiner's own wire is careful about scope — it describes AfD as classified extremist "in some regions," not nationwide. Saxony-Anhalt is one of those regions. The agency built to flag exactly this did its job. Voters read the flag and voted for it anyway.
So what actually stops AfD from running the state? Not the voters — they're done. What stops it, per the Times, is arithmetic: AfD doesn't have a straightforward path to governing alone, and needs a small populist party's cooperation to clear one. The "firewall" — the mainstream parties' decades-old strategy for sidelining the far right — now depends on whether that one party decides to hold the line or step aside. Decades of the strategy standing is not the same thing as a guarantee it survives the next roll call.
Chancellor Merz is the one facing Monday-morning pressure, per the AP wire, because a firewall that depends on a minor party's mood in a single state isn't a wall — it's a doorman deciding case by case whether to check IDs. The Times reports the result is already fresh momentum for hard-right parties eyeing elections elsewhere on the continent next year. Saxony-Anhalt wasn't the destination. It was the test run.
“They built the whole firewall on a gentlemen's agreement, and that only holds as long as the gentlemen keep agreeing. Now it comes down to some small populist outfit doing arithmetic on a Monday morning, deciding whether the guardrail stays up. That's not a constitution, that's a coin flip with extra steps — and Thuringia back in 2024 already showed you which way this coin tends to land.”
“Forty-three point eight percent is a mandate, the voters spoke, that's democracy working exactly the way it's supposed to — the firewall was never really democratic to begin with, it was just the other parties agreeing among themselves not to let the winner win. Wait, did I just say the problem is that the winner isn't allowed to win? That's not — let me circle back on that one.”
The receipts
The Alternative for Germany, or AfD, does not have a straightforward path to governing Saxony-Anhalt, but a small populist party could clear the way.
Speaking optimistically, it’s been a mixed bag for the far right this weekend. Speaking realistically, they’re perhaps this Monday morning more emboldened than ever. Yes, Reform UK is looking battered by toe-curling undercover footage of key officers allegedly displaying a healthy appetite for illegal overseas donations.
The far-right could take control of a German state for the first time since World War 2, after the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday. The party, which has threatened mass deportations and echoed Nazi propaganda, secured 43.8% of the vote, well ahead of the 17.2% won by the Christian Democratic […]
BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was facing pressure Monday after the far-right Alternative Germany (AfD) party swept to a landslide victory in a regional election, possibly paving the way for the first right-wing populist state government since the Nazi era. AfD, classified by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency as an…
A blowout win by the far-right Alternative for Germany party in a state election has revealed a split among voters about whether to uphold a decades-old strategy for sidelining extremists.
A vote in eastern Germany has given fresh momentum to hard-right parties hoping to win elections elsewhere on the continent next year, analysts said.
· A state election tests Germany’s far-right firewall from the morgue, 2 Sep 2026
· Parliamentary elections in the German states of Saxony and Thuringia show large gains for the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party and the left-wing populist Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht par from the morgue, 1 Sep 2024
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.