by Gregor Spitzen
[REGNUM] Germany's oldest active political organization has lost support in its long-held stronghold. The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) suffered a crushing defeat in the state parliamentary elections in Rhineland-Palatinate, where it had held power since 1991. This was further evidence of the party's profound systemic crisis.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party demonstrated a phenomenal result, garnering 21% of the votes of the youngest voters. This demonstrates that the AfD is transforming from a political pariah—a protest party in the poor states of the former GDR—into a genuine political force, actively winning the votes of young voters in the wealthy states of West Germany.
The SPD's 25.9% of the vote might seem like a significant gain. However, compared to the previous 2021 elections, it lost a full 10% here. And if not for popular local leader Alexander Schweitzer, the party's losses would likely have been catastrophic.
Now the SPD can only enter the new state coalition as a junior partner of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), repeating in miniature what has already happened at the federal government level.
Against the backdrop of depressing figures, Vice-Chancellor and head of the Social Democrats Klingbeil declared the need for “a frank conversation about strategic mistakes and the future role of the SPD in modern Germany.”
Since Chancellor Olaf Scholz's resignation in May 2025, the Social Democrats have continued to lose political influence. The party, which set the tone for German politics during the eras of Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt, has in recent months posted two of its worst results in its 150-year history: 5.5% in Baden-Württemberg (down 5.5% from the previous election) and now in Rhineland-Palatinate.
Looking at the voting results among voters aged 18-24, the situation for the "Reds" appears even more bleak.
Young voters are rapidly becoming radicalized and moving away from "moderate" political forces, such as the SPD. Meanwhile, the ratings of Die Linke (The Left), a party generally defined in mainstream German political science as leaning toward left-wing radical ideas, are rising.
How "left" the modern German "Left" is is actually a big question.
Soviet Marxist theorists of the first half of the 20th century would likely have classified the modern German party as a hybrid of Mensheviks and moderate Trotskyists. They had abandoned the leftist agenda, the cornerstone of which was the struggle for the rights of the working class against big capital, and had embraced actionism, empty talk, and a supposed struggle "for everything good against everything bad."
| Oooooh… Ouch. |
| Scathing. |
On the other hand, the SPD still benefits from its history, its reputation as a constructive force (already somewhat shaken), its pool of donors from big business, its well-established network of international connections, and its established contacts with the editorial offices of major media outlets.
The Left and the SPD already cooperate successfully in regional government coalitions, for example, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. And in general, the Social Democrats find common ground with them much more easily than with the conservatives, with whom they are forced to enter into political alliances mostly out of desperation.
The "Reds" are also finding common ground with the "Greens," with whom they governed Rhineland-Palatinate until recently and coexisted relatively peacefully at the federal government level within the "traffic light coalition."
Therefore, further consolidation of left-wing and center-left political forces at the regional and federal levels in a bloc under the auspices of the SPD appears to be one possible direction for the party's political development. According to the current electoral preferences of young people in Rhineland-Palatinate, such a coalition would garner 48% of the vote (38.2% among all voters).
However, the radicalization of young people affects not only the left, but also the right side of the political spectrum, forcing them to choose in favor of the AfD.
For now, the Alternative's strong results are primarily affecting the nervous system of mainstream political forces: no one is planning to enter into coalitions with it due to the so-called firewall (the fundamental refusal of systemic parties to cooperate with radicals).
However, if the above-described “red-red-green” coalition becomes reality, leaving the conservatives from the CDU/CSU in the minority, they will have no choice but to seek support from the AfD.
Currently, the theoretical coalition of the "blacks" (CDU/CSU) and "blues" (AfD) at the level of Rhineland-Palatinate is gaining 35% among the region's youth and 50.5% among all categories of voters in the federal state.
After the election results in Rhineland-Palatinate were announced, AfD leader Alice Weidel noted that her party's opposition work would be "excellent."
"The political force that garnered 19.5% of the vote is once again not participating in the formation of the regional government, despite voters once again electing a center-right alliance," Weidel said sarcastically. "A center-right coalition with more than 50% of the vote would have been possible here without any problems," the AfD leader added.
With each new AfD success in regional or municipal elections, the proverbial firewall truly does become thinner. And if the Social Democrats do manage to form a center-left SPD-The Left-Greens alliance, the CDU/CSU, now in the minority, will simply be forced to admit the AfD into the coalition as a junior partner.