r/dataisbeautiful • u/Xander_Dorn • 14h ago
OC [OC] Correlation between AfD vote share and demographic migrant populations across German states (2025 Federal Election)
Just yesterday, the German AfD became the largest faction in the state election of Saxony-Anhalt, winning 39 of 83 seats. Since this party is known for its anti-migratory policies, I compiled some data from the last Federal Election in 2025, comparing the results of the AfD with the percentage of different categories of people commonly called "Ausländer" (foreigners) in all German states.
In the chart (first image), I sorted the data from the highest results of the AfD to the lowest, while in the table (second image), I kept the data sorted in the alphabetical order of the German names of the states. Sorry for the confusion this might cause!
In the table, I also added the Pearson correlation coefficients between the results of the AfD to the three different categories, which are by official government definitions:
Foreign Population / Foreigners: People who don't have the German citizenship.
Migrant Population: People who personally migrated to Germany.
Population with migrant background: People who were born without German citizenship or who have at least one parent born without German citizenship.
(so the last two categories also do contain some people with the German citizenship)
And what the chart and the numbers say in short: The fewer foreigners / migrants the higher the results of this anti-migratory party.
Sources:
For Population Data: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Population/Migration-Integration/Tables/migrant-status-laender.html
For Election Data: https://www.bundeswahlleiterin.de/bundestagswahlen/2025/ergebnisse/bund-99.html
I also requested demographic data for all constituencies from the state office of statistics of Saxony-Anhalt, so I can do something similar for this recent state election.