AfD Has Become a People’s Party: Arrogance Won’t Change That for Establishment Parties
The Alternative for Germany has evolved from a protest movement into a nationally established party with support across all demographics, as traditional parties' dismissive attitudes fuel its growth.
The party now commands support among young and old voters alike, across both genders, and spans the working class, self-employed professionals, and business owners throughout eastern and western Germany. While significant portions of the population continue to reject the AfD, the party has succeeded in anchoring itself within the broader fabric of German society.
Established parties persist in viewing the AfD as a temporary phenomenon, as Nius reports, a combination of alarmism and arrogance that only fuels further growth for the insurgent political movement. Too many competing parties resent voters for asserting their own interests with determination, creating the very conditions that allowed the AfD to rise as a new national party.
Social Democrats Abandon Working Class Base
The AfD was initially dismissed as merely a protest vehicle. That characterization no longer holds. The party has cultivated a programmatically loyal voter base and continues binding new demographic segments to its platform. The Social Democratic Party has ceded its historic role as the workers’ party, paying a steep price for its march into what Nius describes as woke fringe territory where moral posturing yields bonus points but no electoral majorities.
The SPD no longer wants to be a workers’ party. The AfD has seized that mantle.
Business Community Adjusts to New Reality
Even entrepreneurs are adapting to the realities of a new national party force. While large corporations often remain dominated by left-leaning posture advocates, with companies like Rossmann and Bahlsen joining the so-called fight against the right, such positioning carries economic risk. With the AfD approaching the 30 percent threshold, cookie manufacturers and drugstore chains must consider whether they want roughly 15 million consumers avoiding their products.
The small and medium business sector is taking a more flexible approach. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung recently headlined coverage of how the middle class applauds the AfD ahead of state elections in Saxony-Anhalt. The general secretary of the Association of Liberal Middle Class Saxony-Anhalt told Nius that conversations with association members have solidified the impression that the AfD’s lead candidate addresses the concerns of small and medium enterprises.
That lead candidate is Ulrich Siegmund, who could become the next minister-president of the state.
Female Voters Break Through Previous Barriers
Workers remain committed, business is losing its hesitation, and women refuse to be intimidated. Not only in the general population but specifically among female voters, the AfD now leads. The party is therefore no longer a pure protest movement, is less perceived as an economic threat, and is not a party exclusively for men.
While men dominate AfD officeholders, among the electorate 27 percent of women now identify with the party, according to Nius. The Christian Democratic Union manages only an embarrassing 19.5 percent among this voter group according to Insa polling. The Union can truly score points only with the 70-plus generation. It is the elderly and very elderly who keep the Union above the 20 percent mark.
Even in western Germany, the AfD polls at 26.5 percent, two and a half points ahead of the Union. That bastion has fallen as well. The AfD is no longer purely an eastern party but a pan-German national force.
Competence Perception Shifts
Contributing to this status is the fact that among all parties, the AfD receives the highest attribution of problem-solving competence. Fourteen percent in the RTL/ntv trend barometer is not an intoxicating figure, but the Union registers at 13 percent and the SPD at only five percent.
All these numbers are known. All polls are public. Every party can understand what voters demand: a secure, affordable, free life with prosperity for themselves and their children. The established parties often represent a risky and expensive existence in which citizens are regarded not as sovereigns but as impudent troublemakers.
As long as this politics continues, the rise of the AfD will not end.
With information from Nius
