2025 Hamburg state election

2025 Hamburg state election

←  2020 2 March 2025 2030 →
All 121 seats in the Hamburg Parliament 61 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	4,366,018 (67.7%) 4.5%
First party Second party Third party   Candidate Peter Tschentscher Dennis Thering Katharina Fegebank Party SPD CDU Greens Last election 54 seats, 39.2% 15 seats, 11.2% 33 seats, 24.2% Seats won 45 26 25 Seat change 9 11 8 Popular vote 1,463,560 864,700 805,783 Percentage 33.5% 19.8% 18.5% Swing 5.7 pp 8.6 pp 5.7 pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   FDP Candidate Cansu Özdemir Dirk Nockemann Katarina Blume Party Left AfD FDP Last election 13 seats, 9.1% 7 seats, 5.3% 1 seat, 4.9% Seats won 15 10 0 Seat change 2 3 1 Popular vote 487,729 329,066 100,522 Percentage 11.2% 7.5% 2.3% Swing 2.1 pp 2.2 pp 2.6 pp
Election results by constituency
Government before election Second Tschentscher senate SPD–Green Government after election Third Tschentscher senate SPD–Green

The 2025 Hamburg state election was held on 2 March 2025. ^[1] It was held to elect the members of the 23rd Hamburg Parliament.

Background

In 2020, the SPD came first, losing four seats but coming ahead of the Greens by a large margin. The Greens almost doubled their share of the vote. The CDU achieved its worst ever result in a Hamburg general election, with 11.2 percent, while The Left took 9.1 percent, its best. The AfD just managed to get back in with 5.3 percent of the votes.

The FDP, on the other hand, fell just short of the five percent hurdle with 4.96 percent and missed out on entering parliament for the first time since 2008. However, because of a direct mandate from its top candidate, Anna-Elisabeth von Treuenfels-Frowein, in the Blankenese constituency, the FDP was represented by a non-attached member of parliament. Another member, Sami Musa, joined in January 2022, bringing the number of FDP seats to two, after leaving the SPD in September 2021. The party was reduced to a single seat when von Treuenfels-Frowein defected to the CDU in 2024. Metin Kaya, who was elected for The Left, joined the new Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) in November 2023.

The Second Tschentscher senate was formed as a red–green coalition. ^[2]

Electoral system

Since 2008 Hamburg elections have been held using an open-list system of proportional representation. The Sainte-Laguë method is used to distributed seats. Each voter has ten votes: Five votes can be cast for local constituency candidates and five for candidates on each party's state list. ^[3] The state is divided into 17 constituencies of 3-5 seats. 71 representatives are elected in these based on the result of the constituency vote. A further 50 seats are elected as state list seat, based on the number of state list votes received by each party, distributed in such a way that the distribution of all 121 is proportional to the state list vote. Only parties receiving more than 5% of the state list votes are eligible to receive state list seats; there is no legal threshold for constituency seats. ^[3]

If a party receiving less than 5% of the vote wins one or more constituency seats, the size of the legislature is increased beyond 121 members. A further seat is added if necessary, to ensure that the total number of members is odd. ^[3]

Opinion polls

Graphical summary

Party polling

Polling firm	Fieldwork date	Sample size	SPD	Grüne	CDU	Linke	AfD	FDP	Volt	BSW	Others	Lead
2025 state election	2 Mar 2025	–	33.5	18.5	19.8	11.2	7.5	2.3	3.2	1.8	2.1	13.7
Forschungsgruppe Wahlen	26–27 Feb 2025	1,046	33	17	18	12	9	–	3	–	8	15
INSA	24–26 Feb 2025	1,000	32	16	17	13	11	3	–	3	5	15
Federal election	23 Feb 2025	–	22.7	19.3	20.7	14.4	10.9	4.5	1.5	4.0	1.9	2.0
Infratest dimap	17–19 Feb 2025	1,308	32	18	17	10	10	3	3	3	4	14
Forschungsgruppe Wahlen	10–13 Feb 2025	1,055	32	19	18	9	9	3	3	3	4	13
Infratest dimap	29 Jan – 3 Feb 2025	1,164	31	20	18	8	9	3	–	3	8	11
Trend Research Hamburg	16–20 Jan 2025	890	34	20	16	6	11	3	3	3	4	14
Infratest dimap	9–13 Jan 2025	1,159	31	22	17	5	9	4	–	4	8	9
Trend Research Hamburg	5–10 Dec 2024	886	32	20	17	7	10	4	3	3	4	12
Infratest dimap	20–25 Nov 2024	1,177	30	21	19	6	9	3	3	4	4	9
Forsa	24–28 Oct 2024	1,017	30	21	21	5	8	4	–	4	7	11
EP election	9 Jun 2024	–	18.8	21.1	18.5	5.1	8.0	7.0	5.9	4.9	10.6	2.3
Wahlkreisprognose	15–25 Apr 2024	1,304	32	21.5	18	6	8.5	3.5	–	2	8.5	10.5
Infratest dimap	1–5 Feb 2024	1,164	30	21	20	7	9	5	–	–	8	9
Trend Research Hamburg	17–24 Oct 2023	1,068	31	19	18	10	14	4	–	–	4	12
Wahlkreisprognose	24 Sep–2 Oct 2023	1,000	24.5	21.5	21	8.5	13	3	–	–	8.5	3
Civey	26 Sep–24 Oct 2022	1,000	29	30	20	5	5	4	–	–	7.0	1
Wahlkreisprognose	9–16 Sep 2022	950	32	27	15	8	7	6	–	–	5	5
Wahlkreisprognose	24–29 Jan 2022	1,000	40	26.5	10	6	5	7	–	–	5.5	13.5
2021 federal election	26 Sep 2021	–	29.7	24.9	15.4	6.7	5.0	11.4	0.5	–	6.4	4.8
pmg – policy matters	2–11 Jun 2020	1,020	37	23	13	10	6	5	–	–	4	14
2020 state election	23 Feb 2020	–	39.2	24.2	11.2	9.1	5.3	4.9	1.3	–	6.1	15.0

First mayor polling

Polling firm	Fieldwork date	Sample size				Lead
			Tschentscher SPD	Fegebank Greens	Thering CDU
Forschungsgruppe Wahlen	25–27 Feb 2025	1,250	51	14	15	36
Infratest dimap	17–19 Feb 2025	1,308	49	16	16	33
Forschungsgruppe Wahlen	10–13 Feb 2025	1,055	52	17	12	35
Infratest dimap	27 Jan – 3 Feb 2025	1,164	44	16	15	28
Infratest dimap	9–13 Jan 2025	1,159	44	16	16	28
Infratest dimap	20–25 Nov 2024	1,177	46	15	12	31

Results

The incumbent red-green coalition won 70 of 121 seats and thus retained its majority. Tschentscher stated he would begin discussions over renewing the coalition as soon as possible. He also intends to talk to the CDU in view of that party's improved result, but called a grand coalition his "second choice". ^[4]

Overall results

Party		Constituency list			Statewide list			Total seats	+/–
		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats
	Social Democratic Party	1,329,237	30.75	27	1,463,560	33.52	18	45	9
	Christian Democratic Union	946,795	21.90	18	864,700	19.81	8	26	11
	Alliance 90/The Greens	836,341	19.35	14	805,783	18.46	11	25	8
	The Left	559,745	12.95	9	487,729	11.17	6	15	2
	Alternative for Germany	293,520	6.79	3	329,066	7.54	7	10	3
	Volt Germany	188,396	4.36	0	141,490	3.24	0	0	0
	Free Democratic Party	129,541	3.00	0	100,522	2.30	0	0	1
	Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance				76,922	1.76	0	0	New
	Democratic Alliance for Diversity and Awakening	13,605	0.31	0	25,250	0.58	0	0	0
	Human Environment Animal Protection Party				24,723	0.57	0	0	0
	Die PARTEI				15,620	0.36	0	0	0
	Free Voters	11,695	0.27	0	12,197	0.28	0	0	0
	The Vote – For Peace and Social Justice	9,850	0.23	0	7,251	0.17	0	0	0
	Ecological Democratic Party				6,571	0.15	0	0	0
	Alliance Germany				2,956	0.07	0	0	0
	National Democratic Party of Germany [a]				1,678	0.04	0	0	0
	Independents [b]	4,178	0.10	0				0	0
	The German Conservatives	126	0.00	0				0	New
Total		4,323,029	100.00	71	4,366,018	100.00	50	121	–
Valid votes		4,323,029	99.69		4,366,018	99.61
Invalid/blank votes		13,401	0.31		16,947	0.39
Total votes		4,336,430	100.00		4,382,965	100.00
Registered voters/turnout			67.7			67.7
Source:

Electorate

Demographic		SPD	Grüne	CDU	Linke	AfD	FDP	VOLT	BSW	Other
Total vote		33.5%	18.5%	19.8%	11.2%	7.5%	2.3%	3.2%	1.8%	2.2%
Sex
Men		32%	17%	22%	10%	9%	3%	4%	2%	1%
Women		35%	20%	18%	12%	6%	2%	3%	2%	2%
Age
16–24 years old		27%	16%	11%	25%	6%	4%	4%	2%	5%
25–34 years old		25%	25%	11%	20%	6%	3%	6%	2%	2%
35–44 years old		28%	24%	16%	12%	8%	2%	6%	2%	2%
45–59 years old		34%	19%	24%	6%	9%	2%	2%	2%	2%
60–69 years old		41%	14%	24%	6%	8%	2%	1%	2%	2%
70 and older		47%	9%	29%	5%	5%	2%	1%	1%	1%
Employment status
Self-employed		24%	20%	26%	8%	11%	3%	3%	2%	3%
Employees		32%	21%	18%	11%	6%	2%	4%	2%	4%
Workers		32%	12%	18%	11%	15%	2%	4%	4%	2%
Pensioners		47%	8%	25%	6%	10%	2%	1%	1%	0%
Education
Simple education		45%	8%	25%	6%	10%	2%	1%	1%	0%
Medium education		38%	9%	22%	10%	12%	2%	2%	2%	3%
High education		30%	23%	19%	12%	5%	3%	4%	2%	2%
Financial situation
Good		35%	19%	20%	10%	6%	2%	3%	1%	4%
Bad		24%	11%	15%	21%	17%	1%	3%	5%	3%

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/wahlverhalten-bevoelkerungsgruppen-umfragen-buergerschaftswahl-hamburg-2025-100.html

Notes

1. Legally unrelated party to The Homeland. The Hamburg state chapter of The Homeland left the party in June 2023 in protest of its rebranding from the National Democratic Party, and subsequently formed a new party under the former name. ^[5]
2. Süleyman Cevik, Lukas Thiele, Bérangère Bultheel

References

1. "Hamburg: Bürgerschaftswahl soll am 2. März 2025 stattfinden". NDR.de (in German). 23 March 2024. Retrieved 22 September 2024.
2. "Red-Green agree on coalition agreement". Radio Hamburg (in German). 4 June 2020.
3. "Social Democrats lead Hamburg state election: projection – DW – 03/02/2025". dw.com. Retrieved 2 March 2025.
4. "Regierungsbildung: SPD will so schnell wie möglich sondieren – Gespräche noch in dieser Woche - WELT". DIE WELT (in German). 4 March 2025.
5. "Rechtsextremistische Parteien". hamburg.de.