Germany's Immigrant Voters Drift From Establishment Parties

Germany's established political parties face a widening gap with one of the country's fastest-growing voter blocs. More than seven million Germans—roughly 12 percent of eligible voters—have immigrant backgrounds, meaning they or at least one parent were born without German citizenship. Yet these voters are pulling away from the traditional centrist parties faster than the general electorate, according to research from the Berlin-based German Center for Integration and Migration Research.

The Social Democratic Party retains the strongest foothold among immigrant voters, with two out of three saying they would consider voting SPD. The Christian Democrats trail close behind, with only one in five respondents ruling them out entirely. But the trend line troubles researchers. Friederike Römer, who co-authored the study, noted that while older immigrants have maintained a relatively stable bond with the SPD, that loyalty is fracturing among younger generations. The connection that once seemed durable is visibly eroding.

The far-right Alternative for Germany, despite its anti-immigration platform, is not sitting idle. Nearly two-thirds of immigrant voters surveyed said they would never vote AfD, particularly those with roots in Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa. Yet the party has found traction among Germany's Russian community and is actively working to expand its appeal. During the 2021 Berlin campaign, the AfD ran ads in Turkish declaring that Atatürk would vote for them—a calculated move that other parties have largely ignored. Martin Gerlach, federal director of the Turkish Community in Germany, observed that the AfD was the first major party to invest in native-language outreach with culturally resonant messaging. "Other parties simply don't bother to think about these target groups," he said. "That's crazy, because if you win over big segments of voters with a migration background, you win elections."

What the established parties are missing, according to Gerlach and others, is that immigrant voters do not automatically favor open immigration. Many harbor skepticism toward new arrivals and refugees—a vulnerability the AfD has exploited. More pressing for immigrant communities is personal safety. Gerlach pointed to xenophobic attacks along Germany's Baltic coast and widespread fear in immigrant neighborhoods, concerns he says the centrist parties barely acknowledge. Anti-discrimination policy, he argued, should not be framed as a progressive cause but as constitutional protection—a narrative that could mobilize significant numbers of voters. Yet the mainstream parties treat it as a left-wing issue and move on.

Political scientist Özgür Özvatan has sounded an alarm about the scale of what is being overlooked. By 2030, more than half of Germany's population will have immigrant backgrounds. In his 2025 book, Özvatan criticized established parties for failing to recruit immigrant voters, engage them as volunteers, or even court them seriously as constituents. He sees enormous untapped potential in voters who fled authoritarian regimes and understand democracy's fragility firsthand—people who could be mobilized if citizenship and voting rights were expedited. Instead, the AfD has refined a different strategy: dividing immigrant communities by telling older arrivals they are distinct from newcomers and that migration debates won't touch them. This wedge tactic, Özvatan noted, works particularly well among those not already hostile to the far right.

The arithmetic is stark. Seven million voters represent real electoral power. The established parties' inattention to immigrant concerns—safety, discrimination, belonging—has created space the AfD is deliberately filling. As Germany's demographic composition shifts, the question is no longer whether immigrant voters matter, but whether the centrist parties will recognize it before the answer is decided at the ballot box.