Citizenship election: Why is the AfD in Hamburg weak?

According to projections, the AfD has to worry about moving into the Hamburg citizenship. Polls show that voters mostly see them as a protest party and are disturbed by too little distance from right-wing extremism.

The Hamburg AfD has suffered losses in the state election – and fear for entry into the city-state parliament. According to projections, the party still rose to 6.1 percent in 2015 and now only reaches 4.9 percent – and would therefore fail the five percent hurdle. The AfD, founded in 2013, could miss the re-entry into a state parliament for the first time.

Low vote among young voters

The party lost both women, where its share fell from five to three percent, and somewhat less for men, from seven to six percent. The strongest approval came from the group of workers with 12 percent. It was five percent for self-employed and only four percent for pensioners and employees.

The AfD received low approval ratings, especially among younger voters: only two percent among 16- to 24-year-olds and three percent among 25- to 34-year-olds. The share of votes among the over 70s is only three percent. The most encouragement comes from the 45- to 69-year-olds with six percent.

Lack of distance to right-wing extremist positions

Infratest dimap surveys show that a majority of Hamburg voters are disturbed by the lack of differentiation from right-wing extremism. For example, 87 percent of those surveyed agreed that the AfD did not distance itself enough from right-wing extremist positions.

In addition, the party in Hamburg failed to gain greater confidence in its political competencies. Only in the areas of fighting crime (seven percent), asylum and refugee policy (six percent) and social justice (three percent) do comparatively few Hamburgers attribute the best concepts to the party.

56 percent of AfD voters stated that they chose the AfD because of “disappointment with other parties”. This contrasts with 39 percent who voted for the AfD out of conviction.

Top candidate with low satisfaction ratings

Even with its top candidate Dirk Nockemann, the party apparently could not score. Only eleven percent of those surveyed stated that they were satisfied with the political work of the 61-year-old. This is the lowest among the top candidates of the parties currently represented in parliament. First Mayor Peter Tschentscher got 67 percent, the top candidate of the Greens, Katharina Fegebank, 50 percent.

Nockemann is no stranger to Hamburg. He was already a member of Ronald Schill’s rule-of-law offensive and in 2003 and 2004 for several months he was an interior senator. He has been a member of the AfD since 2013.

In pre-election polls, it still seemed as if entry into parliament would be safe. The AfD was consistently over five percent. The fact that she could fail at the hurdle could also be due to the spontaneous voters. Here, their share was only three percent.

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