Election result highlights divide between cities and rural areas in Germany

Analysis of voting in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has highlighted a clear political divide in Germany: urban centers tend to support the Social Democrats more, while rural areas are increasingly turning toward the Alternative for Germany, or AfD. According to experts, this trend is not limited to Germany but is also emerging in other countries, including France and the United States.

The SPD, led during the campaign by incumbent state premier Manuela Schwesig, achieved its best results in cities, where voters’ average level of education is higher. However, the party’s improvement was not enough to make it the winner, as it secured 35.5% of the vote, around three percentage points less than the AfD.

Support for the Greens and the Left was also around twice as high in cities as in rural areas. This reinforces the observed link between educational attainment and weaker support for the AfD. Meanwhile, the CDU recorded no major differences between urban and rural areas, having suffered a significant decline in both categories.

A similar development had also been observed two weeks earlier in Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD surpassed 50% of the vote in many rural areas. Andreas Möller, head of communications at a major private company, describes this conflict as a “Kulturkampf,” or culture war, between cities and rural areas.

According to Möller, city residents often perceive the consequences of the structural changes affecting the rest of the country only belatedly.