The center-left Social Democrats (SPD), Germany’s oldest political party, face a bleak outlook as five federal states prepare to elect new parliaments this year. Recent polls suggest the SPD could be voted out of power in two states it has governed for decades, while in two others it is languishing in the single digits.
Founded in 1863 as a workers’ party, the SPD built its base among blue-collar voters by promising education, equal opportunity and social rights for factory workers enduring long hours, low wages and precarious living conditions. Over time, many once-industrial workers moved into the middle class, and the traditional working-class constituency that once anchored the SPD has largely dissolved.
A growing share of those feeling socially disadvantaged now lean toward the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). A Forsa survey in November 2025 found only 9% of blue-collar workers and the unemployed would vote SPD; an infratest-dimap post-election poll after the February 2025 general election reported that 38% of working-class voters had supported the AfD. Others who once backed the SPD have defected to the Left Party, which partly formed out of dissatisfaction with SPD social-welfare policies under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
The Left Party emerged in 2007 from a merger of the successor to East Germany’s ruling party and a Western splinter group from the SPD. Its growth reflects long-standing tensions within the SPD about the party’s direction — tensions that date back to Schröder’s tenure (1998–2005). After toppling Helmut Kohl in 1998 with almost 41% of the vote, Schröder introduced Agenda 2010: sweeping welfare-state reforms that cut benefits, loosened employment protections and expanded the low-wage sector. While the reforms helped revive the economy and earned praise from conservatives, they sparked revolt within the SPD’s left wing and pushed many traditional supporters away.
Within a decade the SPD lost nearly half its voters to the Left, the Greens and even the CDU, whose policies under Angela Merkel shifted toward the center and blurred the ideological lines between the two camps. Frequent grand coalitions (CDU/CSU with SPD) from 2005 to 2021 further forced the SPD into compromises and weakened its distinct profile.
A brief resurgence came in 2021, when the SPD rose from low polling to become the largest party with 25.7% of the vote after conservative campaign missteps; Olaf Scholz became chancellor. But the expected revival did not materialize. The three-way government under Scholz was plagued by infighting between the Greens and the Free Democrats (FDP), and it collapsed after three years. In the 2025 election the SPD fell back to around 16%, prompting pollster Manfred Güllner of Forsa to warn of an “existential threat” to the party.
In 2025 the SPD again joined government, this time as junior partner to Friedrich Merz’s more conservative CDU/CSU. The party is now wrestling with familiar problems: difficulty defining a clear profile while sharing power with a dominant partner. The SPD is drafting a new, left-leaning policy platform for 2027 emphasizing social policies, but its credibility is uncertain given its constraints inside the coalition.
Under Merz, the CDU has shifted rightward. With strained public finances and weak economic growth, major reforms of the welfare state, pensions, healthcare and elder care are on the table. The SPD accepts the need for some reforms but pushes for a more humane approach, and has enjoyed a modest uptick in polls by campaigning for greater social equality. Still, the federal government appears hesitant to engage in open conflict ahead of the state elections, and domestic policy is increasingly paralyzed.
Political analysts expect both parties to reassess strategy after the first two state votes in March in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate — states where the SPD has led governments since 1991. Losing power in either would intensify internal pressure within the SPD to distance itself from the CDU/CSU at the national level.
This article was originally written in German.
While you’re here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter, Berlin Briefing.
