What are the main results? The 2025 Bundestag elections have drastically changed the balance of power compared with 2021. In 2021, after 16 years of Angela Merkel, a desire for political change swept the country. Now, three and a half years later, we have seen a turnaround. After the government’s premature end, the ‘traffic light coalition’ parties have been punished, losing al­most 20 percentage points. The CDU did emerge as the strongest party, but it underperformed, failing to reach the hoped-for 30 per cent mark. The AfD, parts of which are considered far-right, doubled its share of the vote and is now the second-strongest party in the Bundestag. After a nail-biting night, it also became clear that the FDP and the BSW would not be part of the 21st Bundestag. This means that parliament will shrink from seven parties(including Die Linke and the BSW) to five. It will turn out over the next few months whether this will lead to more stability or even greater polarisation. Being the chancellor’s party, the SPD has been particularly hard hit by voter disenchantment, suffering the heaviest loss of votes, falling to just 16.4 per cent – a loss of 9.3 per­centage points. It is the SPD’s worst ever result in a Bunde­stag election. As a result, the SPD parliamentary group has shrunk considerably, to only 120 MPs(compared with 206 in 2021). Forty-four MPs won a direct mandate, while 76 will be represented on the list. While in 2021 the SPD was strongly represented throughout Germany, only a few red spots now remain in some regions. Once again, the SPD achieved its best second-vote result in Emden-Aurich, while party co-chair Lars Klingbeil won the most direct votes in the Rotenburg I-Heidekreis constituency(42.1 per cent). Overall, the SPD lost ground in all population groups, par­ticularly among older people(aged 45 and over), blue-col­lar workers and economically dissatisfied voters. Most SPD voters switched to the CDU, but it also lost a considerable number of votes to the AfD and Die Linke. After a hard-fought campaign in which they were the fa­vourites, the CDU/CSU have won the Bundestag elections. They managed 28.5 per cent of the vote, an increase of 4.4 percentage points, but short of their 30 per cent target. This is their second-worst result in a Bundestag election af­ter the defeat in 2021. The CDU/CSU will be represented in the Bundestag by 208 MPs, 172 of whom were elected di­Fig. 1 ‌ Second votes Bundestag election 2025 Figures in per cent. 30 28.5 20 16.4 10 11.6 0 SPD CDU/CSU S S o o u u r r c c e e : : F F e e d d e e r r a a l l R R e e t t u u r r n n i i n n g g O O f f f f i i c c e e r r . . Greens 4.3 FDP 20.8 8.8 4.97 4.6 AfD Linke BSW Other 4 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V.