On Sunday, voters in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in East-Central Germany will go to the polls to elect a new government. Election outcomes in relatively small German states might not seem that interesting to outside observers. Polling suggests, however, that this election could produce an outcome without precedent in postwar Germany: the far-right Alternative for Germany coming close to, or even winning, a majority. If so, it would appear to prove that Germany’s efforts to contain the far-right and keep voters from handing them power might not be working.

The trajectory of Saxony-Anhalt is stark. In the 2021 state election, the AfD took 20.8% of the vote, a distant second to the Christian Democratic Union’s 37.1%. Current polling puts the AfD at roughly 41-42%, nearly double its last result, with the CDU sitting at around 22-24%. The far-left Die Linke is at a distant third, near 13%. The current governing coalition of CDU, the Social Democrats, and the Free Democrats is expected to fall short of the seats needed to continue in power. If the current polls hold steady, the AfD would win the most votes by a wide margin, coming within a handful of seats of an outright majority.