Prices as of August 25, 2026, 3:05 p.m. ET. Record compiled from 35 dated sources; see the sourced record file for every citation.
Twelve days before Saxony-Anhalt votes, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is polling at 43% in a state whose own intelligence office classifies its branch as confirmed right-wing extremist, no other party will govern with it, and the market has stopped arguing about who finishes first. On Kalshi, where a price in cents is a probability, the contract on the AfD winning the September 6 state election shows a 95¢ bid against a 100¢ ask and last traded at 99¢. Call the middle 97.5¢: about a 97.5% chance, or roughly -3,900 in sportsbook terms. The CDU of Minister-President Sven Schulze, which won this state by 16 points in 2021, sits at 1¢ bid, 2¢ ask.
The live question has moved one door down. Polymarket runs a separate contract on whether the AfD wins an absolute majority, more than half the seats on its own, and it trades at 32.5¢: one chance in three that a party nobody will partner with turns out not to need one. The coin is being flipped by the Greens, who sit at exactly 5% in the newest poll, the bar a party must clear to receive any seats at all.
Schulze put the stakes in one sentence on Politico's Berlin Playbook podcast, per ZEIT on August 21: "Wenn die Umfrageergebnisse zu einem Wahlergebnis werden, dann wird es wirklich schwer" (if the poll numbers become an election result, then it gets really hard). Sahra Wagenknecht, whose BSW polls near that same 5% line, answered in a Spiegel interview reported by ZEIT on August 24: you can keep doing that "bis die AfD tatsächlich die absolute Mehrheit hat" (until the AfD actually has the absolute majority).
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The Board
As of August 25, 2026, 3:05 p.m. ET (Kalshi, cents = probability):
| Outcome | Price | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| Kalshi: AfD finishes first (3:05 p.m. ET) | 97.5¢ mid (95 bid / 100 ask, last 99) | about 97.5% (≈-3,900 in sportsbook terms) |
| Kalshi: CDU finishes first (3:05 p.m. ET) | 1.5¢ mid (1 bid / 2 ask) | about 1.5% (≈+6,500) |
| Polymarket: AfD majority (3:05 p.m. ET) | 32.5¢ Yes / 67.5¢ No | about 32.5% (≈+208) |
| Polymarket: AfD over 42% (3:05 p.m. ET) | 65.5¢ Over | about 65.5% (≈-190) |
A 95 bid against a 100 ask means a buyer today pays 99 or 100 cents to earn a dollar: a statement about the polls more than an opportunity. Kalshi's rules settle on which party wins the most seats, so an AfD that finishes first and is then frozen out by a CDU-Linke-SPD arrangement still pays Yes. Kalshi lists no majority contract here, so Polymarket's 32.5¢ ($388,958 traded) is the only real price on the question that matters.
What the Models Think
We also asked a panel of AI models the same question, and 6 of the panel's eight seats ran this board, without seeing the price, only the sourced record below. Their blended middle answer put the AfD at 97%, a half point below the 97.5¢ market, and the widest gap between any two models was 7 points. The reasons were the market's reasons: one model wrote that the AfD "has led every 2026 state poll by 13-20 points, widening from +13-15 in Q1 to +17-20 since May, against a shrinking CDU." On first place there is no disagreement to trade; the models pointed their uncertainty at the majority and the coalition math, which no seat was asked to price. These are model estimates, not predictions; the market has real money behind it, the panel only the record.
How A 16-Point Loss Became A 20-Point Lead
In June 2021 the CDU won Saxony-Anhalt 37.1% to the AfD's 20.8%, per the poll archive at wahlrecht.de. Nine state polls into 2026 the order has flipped: the AfD read 38 to 39% in January, 41 to 43% from May on, and the three newest surveys (Infratest dimap, INSA, and pollytix for the campaign group Campact) show 41, 42 and 43 against a CDU down to 22 or 24. ZEIT reported on August 12 that only about 13% of pollytix respondents were undecided and that the AfD's own 45% target would, by nearly all current polls, deliver a majority, a number it has not hit in any survey.
The Landtag is the state parliament, at least 83 seats, and it elects the Minister-President, the head of the state government. The result carries past Magdeburg because every state government casts bloc votes in the Bundesrat, Germany's upper house, and an AfD-led state would put the party in that room for the first time, as CSIS noted on July 30. For readers who want how a price in cents becomes a probability before going further, 97.5¢ leaves room for one outcome only: a polling miss of historic size. The same arithmetic runs on every American race on the 2026 midterm board. The AfD's top candidate is Ulrich Siegmund, 35, in the Landtag since 2016; Schulze, 47, has held the top job only since January 28.
The Fight Over Who Governs With A 43% Party
The firewall, or Brandmauer, is the mainstream parties' pledge never to govern with the AfD, which the CDU wrote into a 2018 incompatibility resolution that also bars Die Linke on the left. The classification under it, stated exactly: Saxony-Anhalt's state intelligence office classified the AfD's state association "gesichert rechtsextremistisch" (confirmed right-wing extremist) in November 2023, citing what ZEIT described on August 15 as numerous anti-Islam, racist and antisemitic statements by officials; the federal classification of the whole party was blocked on February 26, 2026 by the Cologne administrative court pending trial. In that ZEIT piece Siegmund did not rule out abolishing the office that classified his party, calling himself "völlig ergebnisoffen" (completely open-ended).
correctiv reported on June 30 that he was "ein wichtiger Gast" (an important guest) at the November 2023 Potsdam meeting on "remigration." Asked on a Politico podcast on November 20, 2025 whether the Holocaust was the greatest crime in human history, he said: "Das maße ich mir nicht an zu bewerten" (I don't presume to judge that), a line correctiv's November 27 fact-check confirmed. correctiv reported on February 6 that his father holds his third AfD-office job, at "7.725 Euro" a month per ZDF. On August 24 ZEIT reported his appeal on X to look "genau hinzuschauen" (very closely) at postal voting in care homes, which returning officer Christa Dieckmann rejected: "Diese allgemeinen Vorwürfe teile ich nicht" (I do not share these general accusations). The program is where the money is: the 100-day plan reported by MDR on July 14 opens by cancelling the public-broadcasting treaties "als erste Amtshandlung" (as the first official act), which MDR said on August 22 would end its Saxony-Anhalt programs by 2028; the IWH institute in Halle costed 10 of the 41 promises at €913 million a year, per MDR Investigativ on July 28.
The wall is under load from three sides. Schulze, in ZEIT on August 23, said he will not form a government of any kind "mit ganz links und ganz rechts" (with the far left and the far right). Thorsten Frei, the CDU/CSU floor leader, told DW on August 23: "The ban on cooperation with the AfD is a fundamental party resolution of the CDU." Michael Kretschmer, the CDU premier in neighboring Saxony, told Handelsblatt, per DW: "Anyone still talking about firewalls has failed to recognize the signs of the times." Wagenknecht called the whole thing "Brandmaueridiotie" (firewall idiocy). Federal President Steinmeier answered the "remigration" plans on August 25, as Anadolu reported: "Our constitution is clear: there are no first- or second-class citizens." CSIS notes the AfD received "Vice President J.D. Vance's and Elon Musk's explicit endorsements," though "President Trump's claims on Greenland and the war with Iran have cooled the relationship drastically."
Now the seat math: votes for any party under 5% are discarded before seats are handed out, so each small party that misses the bar shrinks the pool the AfD must beat half of.
On the pollytix numbers (our arithmetic, flagged as such): the five parties clearing 5% total 91 points, and the AfD's 43 is about 47% of seats, short of a majority. Greens at 4.9% and the pool is 86: the AfD at 50.0%, a coin flip. SPD under too and the AfD is near 54%.
A tactical-voting campaign by the agency The Goodforces has put €38,150 each behind the Greens and SPD to hold them above the line, per Euronews on August 19, which the AfD's Weidel called "a scandal for democracy." There is also a side door: ZEIT explained on August 12 that if nobody wins the first two ballots for Minister-President, the third needs only the most votes, and BSW has pledged to abstain.
What Moves The Price From Here
Wednesday, August 26: Schulze and Siegmund meet in a head-to-head TV duel on MDR's "Fakt ist!", and the polls that follow it are the last read before the vote. They matter most for the majority row: the Greens at 5 or 4, and the SPD at 7 or 6, move the Polymarket majority contract far more than any AfD movement does, because they set the size of the pool. This one settles on Sunday, September 6, 2026.
Hero illustration: OddsShopper, in the house collage style. Landtag of Saxony-Anhalt, Magdeburg photo by nick smith, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0; photos cropped, toned, and composited. Prices quoted are live Kalshi market prices as of August 25, 2026, 3:05 p.m. ET, and will keep moving until this market settles after the Sunday, September 6, 2026 vote. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange (18+; availability varies by state). OddsShopper covers prediction markets as an independent analyst: any model or panel figures referenced are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. This article does not advocate for or against any candidate or party. Trading involves risk; contracts can go to zero.
