Multiple elections are happening in September across Germany. Despite strong anti-migration sentiment, the number of voters with immigration background is actually on the rise – yet they remain unconvinced by contending parties.
Migration Background in Germany
The latest statistics reveal that while the number of arriving refugees is decreasing, the number of people with migration backgrounds is slowly increasing, according to Destatis, the German Federal Statistical Office.
According to Destatis, migration background includes first-generation immigrants who immigrated to Germany themselves, as well as descendants or second-generation immigrants, one of whose parents immigrated to Germany after 1950.
They also use “immigration history,” a term that excludes second-generation immigrants who have one German parent. The largest groups with immigration history originate from Poland and Turkey (about 1.5 million), Ukraine (1.3 million), Russia, and Syria (1 million).
According to an April 2026 Destatis press release, 21.8 million people, or 26.3% of the German population, had immigration history.
This represents a modest increase of 1.7% from 2024’s figures, but previous years yielded much larger increases: since 2005, the number of people with migration backgrounds has risen from 13 million to 21.8 million in 2025 – an increase of 67%, according to Destatis.
As asylum laws tighten, with plans to make them even stricter, the number of asylum seekers dropped in the first half of 2026 by around 20,000 to approximately 3.5 million. While this is attributed to the increase in deportations, departures, and naturalizations, the decline of newly arriving refugees from Ukraine is also a big contributor.
How People with Immigration History Vote
The German Centre for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) published its study on the preferences of voters with a migration background in August. They found that overall, no party was able to increase their electability, and it declined among those with migration backgrounds. This is especially true for those from North Africa, the Middle East, and Turkey – the groups with the highest number of immigrants in the country.
While the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party had the least potential, with two-thirds of those surveyed saying that voting for them was out of the question, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) had the greatest voter potential among immigrants, with two out of three saying they considered them a viable option.
The AfD has been attempting to connect since the 2021 federal election, when they targeted people with Turkish, Middle Eastern, and North African roots in a campaign that communicated in their native languages.
“It read: ‘Atatürk would vote for the AfD.’ Other parties simply don’t bother to think about these target groups. That’s crazy, because if you win over big segments of voters with a migration background, you win elections,” Martin Gerlach, federal executive director of the Turkish Community in Germany (TGD), told the Deutsche Welle.
Political scientist Özgür Özvatan warned that over half of Germany’s population is projected to have an immigration background by 2030.
The AfD is establishing ties with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to address the Turkish diaspora while pitting different immigrant groups against each other.
“A great deal of effort is being put into telling older immigrants: ‘You are different from the newcomers, this whole debate about migration and deportation won’t affect you.’ And this tactic works well with those who do not reject the AfD,” said Özvatan.
