Bernd Baumann let himself be carried away by the euphoria. During the ARD “Berliner Runde” on Sunday evening, the parliamentary manager of the AfD parliamentary group put his party’s electoral success in Lower Saxony in line with the recent triumphs of right-wing populist parties in Italy and Sweden, which will now co-govern there. The AfD result in the second largest federal state in terms of area fits in there because it shows “that people are afraid that the economy is afraid” – especially of the economic policy of the Berlin traffic light.

Baumann unintentionally thwarted his party’s line for the evening. In view of the double-digit result and the doubling of the votes compared to the last state election in 2017, she didn’t want to play the fear and protest card this time. “We’ve now arrived in the West, too,” top candidate Stefan Marzischewski-Drewes never tired of stating. The voters would now see a real alternative in the “alternative” thematically – and not only in the east of the republic, where the AfD has celebrated its greatest successes so far.

However, election researchers noticed as conspicuous that the right-wing populists, after a very long dry spell with many meager to poor election results, picked up again just at a time of crisis. “The strong increase in the votes of the AfD can be explained with a clear protest election behavior,” analyzed the Oldenburg political scientist Michael Jankowski on the North German radio. “We recognize that while there is a small overall proportion of the population, nonetheless relevant in elections, who disagree with the federal government’s course on the Ukraine war or are suffering from the effects, such as increased energy prices.” The AfD clearly picked up on the fears and worries in the election campaign. National political issues were hardly served.

The analysis is confirmed by the bare figures. According to the findings of the opinion research institute Infratest-Dimap for the ARD, the AfD voters who ticked the party out of conviction were in the minority. Fifty-three percent of respondents said they chose the “Alternative” out of disappointment with other parties; 38 percent made their choice out of conviction. The most important reasons for deciding in favor of the AfD are mainly fear of existence and uncertainty: concern about the situation in Germany (93 percent of AfD voters), injustice in Germany (84), dissatisfaction with democracy (84) or dissatisfaction with the work of the federal government (96).

Even if, according to the analyzes, voters with conviction are in the minority for the AfD: a protest election and the party’s success in the West do not have to be a contradiction in terms. In fact, the party seems to have come to grips with the crisis in the West. Shortly before the election weekend, for example, the Mainz political researcher Jürgen Falter determined that the AfD had managed to reverse the trend. The approval ratings have recently risen sharply again, and it could be even more. “The wave can get even higher. It will depend on how deeply the crisis affects people’s lives. The AfD should have a potential of 18 to 20 percent,” said Falter of the “Augsburger Allgemeine” (“AA”). About three quarters of the 20 percent consisted of a clientele whose love for the far right depended on the economic situation. She is “awakened or she slacks off again,” says Falter.

However, Falter finds it “worrying” that the AfD can repeatedly win voters from the CDU and FDP – i.e. from a clientele that is mostly assigned to medium-sized companies. It was the same in Lower Saxony, where 50,000 CDU voters and 40,000 FDP voters switched to the AfD camp. One did not only win voters from the protest camp, AfD leader Tino Chrupalla stated happily on Monday in Berlin. The aim for the next few years is now to win voters from the FDP and CDU who have been “pulled over” as regular voters. For the upcoming state elections in Hesse and Bavaria next year, Chrupalla also set the goal of a double-digit result. Political scientist Falter currently does not believe in it. “These people can win back the established parties,” he told AA. The crisis management of the federal government should be decisive for whether the AfD can also celebrate successes in these two western countries or not. Or to put it another way: how badly the Hessians and Bavarians will feel the crisis.

Sources: Infratest-Dimap/Tagesschau (graphics on the AfD); Infratest-Dimap/Tagesschau (voter hikes AfD); Norddeutscher Rundfunk (video); “Augsburger Allgemeine”; ARD (“Berlin Round”); DPA news agency