Voter potentials provide insight into what is possible for parties – in particular, which constituencies contain voters who would also consider voting for other parties. Our chart of the month shows voter potentials in the 2025 federal election.
Generally speaking, many voters had an alternative choice: only 34 per cent of voters could not have imagined voting for another party. However, more than half of CDU/CSU (53 per cent) and AfD (59 per cent) voters had no alternative party, while this was only true for a quarter of voters for the Left Party, BSW, FDP and the Greens.
Compared to before the election campaign, the additional voter potentials that can be mobilised have shifted slightly: the Greens have significantly greater additional potential among Left Party voters (45 per cent). This effect is explained by the larger number of swing voters switching from the Greens to the Left Party. In contrast, the voter potential for the CDU/CSU among AfD voters has fallen from 22 per cent to 13 per cent since November 2024, despite significant losses for the CDU/CSU to the AfD in the federal election compared to 2021 (approx. one million votes).
Find out further analyses in the study “Voting motives in the 2025 federal election”.
