- Left Party’s lead candidate, Elif Eralp, could become the city-state’s first mayor with a migration background if they win the vote and manage to form a coalition government
- Soaring rents sit at the center of the race, along with more affordable public transport and better waste collection
Berlin votes Sunday in a race that could punish Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative CDU and hand Germany’s capital to the socialist Left Party for the first time.
Elif Eralp, a 45-year-old human rights advocate and the child of parents from Türkiye, is leading the polls with 22% and could become the city-state’s first mayor with a migration background.
The conservative CDU, which has led Berlin in coalition with the center-left SPD since 2023, is heading for heavy losses. After winning 28.2% in the last election, it is now polling at about 20% and risks losing power in the capital.
The right-wing AfD is expected to roughly double its share, from 9.1% in 2023 to 18% in the latest surveys released Thursday. It has no path into the next government. All major parties rule out any cooperation or coalition with the anti-immigration party. About 2.5 million people can vote, including 16- and 17-year-olds for the first time.
What the candidates are offering
The Left Party’s Eralp has built her campaign around problems she says affect Berliners regardless of income or background: rising rents, the cost of buses and trains, and weak waste collection.
The Left Party wants city-owned landlords limited to rent increases of 1% a year and plans to build 7,500 municipal apartments annually. It also wants to revive the debate over bringing large private housing firms into public ownership.
Her main rival is CDU lead candidate Stefan Evers, the finance senator in the current regional government. His campaign stresses greater security for Berliners and attacks the Left Party as a “security risk,” arguing that it would cut the police budget and abolish the domestic intelligence service.
The right-wing AfD’s lead candidate Kristin Brinker has put immigration at the center.
She wants an immediate stop on taking in asylum seekers in Berlin, faster removals of people who have no right to stay and of serious offenders. “Apartments are not asylum shelters,” she has said, arguing that city housing should go first to working Berliners.
Possible coalition scenarios
The latest poll for public broadcaster ZDF puts the Left Party first at 22%, with the conservative CDU close behind at about 20%. Neither share would be enough to govern Berlin alone.
The anti-immigration AfD is at 18%, the environmentalist Greens at 15%, and the center-left SPD at 12%. The left-populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) is at 4% and risks missing the 5% threshold needed to enter the Berlin state parliament.
The figures point to a fragmented landscape, with no clear two-party majority. Uncertainty is high, and as of Thursday, 23% of respondents said they were still unsure which party to support.
If the polling holds, the most likely governing option would be a Left Party-Greens-SPD coalition. If Eralp’s party finishes first, it would have the strongest claim to the governing mayor’s office. Green lead candidate Werner Graf has already signaled interest, saying a progressive government would be good for the city.
If the CDU comes first, the main alternative would be a three-party alliance of the CDU, the SPD, and the Greens. SPD lead candidate Steffen Krach declined to choose between the CDU and the Left Party during the campaign, saying only: “We’ll look at that after Sunday evening.”
Unless the vote produces a clearer result than polls suggest, coalition talks in Berlin could stretch for days or weeks.
What a Berlin loss could mean for Merz
A defeat in Berlin would hit the Christian Democrats at both the state and federal levels. It would particularly sharpen pressure on Merz inside his own party and fuel questions over whether he can stay on as chancellor.
The conservatives have already taken a sharp blow this month in Saxony-Anhalt, where the right-wing AfD finished first with 43.8%, ahead of the CDU on 17.2%. The result was a major defeat for the party, which had governed the state for decades with different coalition partners.
In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern — which also votes on Sunday — the CDU is heading for another setback, polling at 6% in the latest surveys, close to the 5% threshold needed to enter the state parliament.
Local issues still shape regional races. But many observers say the party’s slide across three state contests this month has been compounded by Merz’s weak performance in office.
A Forsa survey for RTL/ntv, conducted on Sept. 8-14, put Merz’s approval rating at 10%, with 88% of Germans dissatisfied with his performance — the lowest figure recorded so far for a sitting chancellor.
An Insa poll for Bild showed that 78% no longer see him as the right person for the job, including a majority of CDU/CSU voters. A representative YouGov poll this week found that 48% of voters expect Merz will no longer be chancellor by the end of the year.
Senior CDU leaders plan an internal meeting on Monday. Lawmakers from the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, are due to meet two days later.
A leadership change would not automatically dissolve parliament or force a national election. If party pressure pushes Merz aside, the Bundestag could elect a new chancellor without a nationwide vote.
