Berlin elections 2026

Die Linke won 25.7% in Berlin, roughly doubling its 2023 vote. The SPD fell to 12.1%, the Greens to 14.3% and the CDU to 18.8%, while the AfD rose to 16.3%. So the story here is that both Die Linke and the AfD gained substantially while the traditional parties of the broad political centre lost ground.

Now it isn't difficult to understand why Die Linke did so well. Berlin has a genuine and measurable housing crisis. The city's own estimate says another 211,000 homes will be needed between 2026 and 2040. Die Linke made housing the centre of its campaign and was clearly seen as the strongest party on the issue, particularly among younger voters. Its proposed solutions include much more public housing, stronger rent controls and the socialisation of large private housing companies, meaning compulsory transfer into public ownership with compensation. Building new affordable public housing actually increases supply, but purchasing existing apartments would cost many billions in compensation and raises an obvious opportunity-cost question: how many new apartments, schools or transport projects could be built with the same money? Interestingly, although 57.6% backed socialisation in the 2021 referendum, only 37% supported it in the latest polling and 51% opposed it. So the election result shouldn't be read as blanket approval for every part of Die Linke's programme.

Both Die Linke and the SPD support stronger tenant protection, more social housing, progressive taxation and a strong welfare state, but their underlying philosophies differ. The SPD remains fundamentally social democratic: regulate capitalism and use a mixed economy to serve social goals. Die Linke comes from a democratic-socialist tradition and is much more willing to take essential goods and services out of private markets altogether. Their differences become larger still at federal level, particularly on defence, Ukraine and immigration: The SPD supports higher defence spending and continued military assistance to Ukraine, whereas Die Linke opposes further military build-up and weapons deliveries to war zones; on immigration, Die Linke favours much broader residence rights and opposes deportations.

Berlin is young, urban and renter-heavy. The election results there follow a broader pattern we've seen elsewhere. Increasing numbers of voters are abandoning mainstream parties they associate with failing to solve problems they experience directly, and turning instead to parties promising much more substantial change. And it isn't as though Berliners haven't tried the established parties first. Over the past 15 years they have repeatedly elected governments led by the SPD and, more recently, the CDU, while the housing crisis has continued to get worse. (To be fair, Die Linke itself was also in government from 2016 to 2023, so it cannot entirely claim outsider status either.) There's no surprise here really. This is what happens when obvious problems remain unresolved through successive governments and are just left to fester. Voters will start looking elsewhere for solutions. Whether the alternatives they now choose can actually deliver the changes they expect is a different kettle of fish.

(Sources: official Berlin election results; Berlin Senate housing planning; Infratest dimap/ARD, September 2026.)

The dragon in my garage (peer pressure edition)

Suppose I tell you there is a dragon living in my garage.

Naturally, you ask to see it.

Fair enough.

I open the garage door.

Inside are some cardboard boxes, a bicycle I have been meaning to repair since approximately the late Pleistocene, a lawnmower, several objects whose original purpose has been lost to history, and absolutely no visible dragon.

“Ah,” I say. “Of course you can’t see it. The dragon is invisible. Should have mentioned that.”

Right.

You think about this for a moment and suggest scattering flour over the floor. If the dragon is there, surely it will leave footprints.

“No. It floats above the ground.”

Very well.

You suggest bringing in an infrared camera. Dragons are creatures traditionally associated with fire, so it ought to give off some heat.

“This one doesn’t.”

“Well,” you say, “perhaps we could spray a fine mist of paint into the garage and reveal its outline?”

“Nooo. The paint passes straight through it.”

Every test you propose is followed by a new property of the dragon explaining why that particular test cannot possibly work.

“I see that you are still skeptical,” I say, disappointed.

The next day I bring twenty people to the garage. Some of them are your friends and family.

“Look,” I tell you. “All of these people believe the dragon is real. Do you believe me now?”

One of them looks genuinely puzzled by your hesitation.

“Millions of people believe in dragons like this,” she says. “Do you seriously think all those people could be wrong?”

A respected older member of the community steps forward.

“My belief in the dragon has given my life meaning,” they tell you sincerely.

Another person explains that the dragon helped her through the most difficult period of her life.

Someone else tells you that his grandmother believed in the dragon, and she was the kindest person he ever knew.

A fourth informs you that some extremely clever philosophers have also believed in dragons.

“Could we perhaps devise some kind of test to make sure...?” you say.

There is a small silence.

“You still don’t believe us?” someone asks.

Then a member of your own family, obviously embarrassed by you and hurt by your stubbornness, asks:

“Why are you the only one who cannot accept what everyone else believes is there?”

You mumble that you do not doubt anyone’s sincerity, but twenty people repeating a claim do not necessarily constitute twenty independent pieces of evidence.

Twenty people independently seeing a dragon would certainly be interesting. But if the twenty people learned about the dragon from the same tradition, heard the same stories, rely on one another’s testimony, and none of them can actually detect the dragon either, then their agreement is not twenty independent observations. It may simply be the same claim echoed twenty times over.

You say that their belief in the dragon may comfort them, inspire them, make them kinder, give structure to their lives, connect them to their parents and grandparents, or provide an answer to the rather unsettling business of finding oneself briefly alive in an enormous universe without an instruction manual.

All of that is interesting, and some of it is certainly beautiful.

But sincerity, comfort, tradition, intelligence, and a room full of people agreeing with one another are not enough to establish that the dragon is actually there.

So you return, somewhat tediously, to the original question:

“What observation could distinguish between these two possibilities?

1) There is an invisible, floating, heatless, intangible dragon in the garage.
or
2) There is actually no dragon in the garage.”

You continue, unabated:

“Because if no conceivable observation could distinguish one possibility from the other, and every failed attempt to detect the dragon can simply be accommodated by inventing another property of the dragon, then we have reached a peculiar situation. The claim has been constructed so that nothing we observe can count against it. There is no longer any obvious way to test whether it is true.”

By now nobody is particularly happy with you.

You have, after all, been invited to contemplate the remarkable properties of a dragon, and somehow you have managed to turn a beautiful evening into a boring seminar on epistemology. Boo to you.

You notice that everyone is now rather uncomfortable with your presence.

You think that, in the end, perhaps you have not learned very much about dragons, but you have certainly learned quite a lot about human beings.

You have dinner alone that evening. The others may have escaped your incessant questioning, but the questions, annoyingly, have followed you home.

* No dragons were harmed while writing this piece.

* Carl Sagan's "The Dragon in My Garage" is a famous thought experiment from his 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World that illustrates the burden of proof and why untestable claims are meaningless.

Sachsen-Anhalt 2026 election results

The result in Sachsen-Anhalt is historic. The last ARD projection I saw put the AfD at 44.0%, CDU 17.5%, SPD 9.2%, Greens 8.9%, Linke 8.6% and BSW 5.1%. The AfD has more than doubled its 2021 result, while the CDU has roughly halved its support. The AfD remains short of an absolute majority, so governing is another question.

Its programme calls for “remigration”, more deportations, compulsory work for asylum seekers, tighter benefits, stronger policing and citizen patrols. It wants more selection and discipline in schools, less inclusion, separate classes for some refugee children, and greater emphasis on traditional German culture.

The AfD also proposes defunding equality, integration, gender and some democracy programmes, and rolling back wind power while preserving coal and reviving nuclear energy. It combines cultural nationalism with economic populism, promising family benefits and free school meals despite an estimated annual financing gap of at least €2.2 billion.

On Europe, it wants a “Europe of nations”, rejects further transfers of sovereignty and debt mutualisation, and says Germany should be prepared to leave the Euro. Some currents openly question EU membership.

On Ukraine, it rejects sustained German support, opposes sending long-range weapons and calls for an immediate ceasefire and negotiations, rewarding Russian aggression and weakening Kyiv. It wants sanctions against Russia ended, economic relations restored and a pragmatic partnership revived, while often blaming Washington, Brussels or Berlin for the confrontation. It also wants Ukraine permanently out of the EU and out on NATO.

Continued growth of the AfD would risk conflict with the Bundesbank, German industry, financial markets, European partners and the legal foundations of the European Union.

Why did almost half the electorate in Sachsen-Anhalt vote for it? Migration, crime, schools, economic stagnation and rejection of the federal government all played a role, shaped by eastern Germany’s history.

Reunification brought freedom and material improvement, but also industrial collapse, unemployment, westward migration, demographic decline and the replacement of eastern elites by western ones. Many feel ignored, abandoned and looked down upon. Eastern Germans remain underrepresented in senior institutions; in Sachsen-Anhalt, 73% said in 2024 that they are still treated as “second-class citizens”, while only 16% in a 2026 poll had strong confidence in the state’s basic functions. The AfD has capitalized on concerns about migration, energy, insecurity, Berlin politics and decisions made elsewhere.

As a state government, the AfD could redirect school curricula and funding, change administrative priorities, strengthen police and deportation infrastructure, withdraw discretionary funding from NGOs and cultural projects, and begin leaving broadcasting treaties. But it cannot rewrite Federal asylum or citizenship law, dictate foreign policy, abolish constitutional rights, overturn EU law or dismiss career civil servants. Foreign policy, defence, sanctions and monetary policy remain Federal or European matters. Still, the AfD will use its influence to slow down or disrupt Federal legislation. Almost all other political parties still reject cooperation.

It would be a mistake to treat 44% of the voters in Sachsen-Anhalt as stupid, racist or morally contaminated. The “Brandmauer” will not restore trust. Parties must credibly address migration control, public order, infrastructure, schools, rising energy costs and eastern representation, acknowledge failures and offer believable liberal democratic solutions. They must also explain clearly that undermining the Euro threatens prosperity, abandoning Ukraine emboldens Russia, ending sanctions increases dependence on Moscow, and weakening Europe damages Germany and its allies during very dangerous times. They must also force the AfD to confront arithmetic: which promises are constitutional, who pays the €2.2 billion, where will workers come from, and what would weaker European integration and abandoning Ukraine mean for German jobs, security and global influence?

At 44%, moral quarantine has largely exhausted itself. The answer is more competent government, universal rules and empirical scrutiny. It is not about more lectures on morality, but about acknowledging the problems, offering believable solutions and rebuilding trust.

AfD promises are pipe dreams. Reality may eventually collapse them, but not before they cause real damage.