The Social Democratic Party wanted to be both a trade union and a co-working space – and in the end they were no longer credible. They feel this themselves: about one in six party members no longer vote for the SPD.
While the SPD and its leader Lars Klingbeil feature prominently in the government coalition and push the social democratic position, the party is actually heading down an increasingly slippery road. Observers such as the head of opinion research institute Forsa, Manfred Güllner, are now talking about a situation that “threatens their very existence”.
SPD’s fight for survival doesn’t play out as a sudden heart attack, but rather as a slow death: you watch a party of parents catch their breath but can hold on no longer. Dissatisfaction with the government is growing and dissatisfaction with Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) is also high – which would theoretically be an ideal climate for a social democratic revival. However, in practice, the SPD remains in the shadows. And his superiors do not take advantage of other parties’ weaknesses.
18 percent of members no longer want to vote for the SPD
Forsa’s current analysis puts the Social Democrats well below the 15 percent mark since the federal election; in the RTL/ntv trend barometer, the figure was last at 14 percent. With a non-voter rate of about 25 percent, this equates to only about 10.5 percent of all eligible voters. Forsa stated that this was the “lowest proportion” the SPD had mobilized since 1945 – and even since the Weimar period.
The party that was once the backbone of the Bonn Republic has now dwarfed itself in the Berlin Republic. These findings had a lasting impact on the environment that had been the cornerstone of SPD’s history. Workers, skilled workers and the unemployed – those whose names are still in politics – are increasingly moving away from the party. According to Forsa’s analysis, of all workers and unemployed, currently only 9 percent voted for SPD.
The most bitter thing is a figure that was considered completely unimaginable in the era of Willy Brandt: 18 percent of our members would vote for another party today. The SPD is no longer just losing voters, it is also losing confidence in itself.
Historic decline: The SPD has lost 60 percent of its voters since 1998
Forsa reports that the party has on average lost around 60 percent of its former voters since 1998. This is also due to the party system now having more groups exceeding the 5 percent threshold, but even in these conditions, the SPD’s value is not a flaw, but an erosion. In Thuringia, three-quarters of Schröder’s SPD voters have disappeared, and half in Hamburg.
If we look at past state elections, it matches this: in only five of the 13 federal states was the SPD still voted for by more than a fifth of those entitled to vote; In countries such as Schleswig-Holstein, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria the figure is less than 10 percent, in Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt it is sometimes only 5 percent. If red flags once dominated the political landscape, now the AfD’s blue flags often fly.
AfD dominates East Germany – SPD struggles to enter parliament
Survey results ahead of next year’s state elections worsen the picture. In Saxony, the SPD got just 5 percent in Civey’s survey, while the AfD is clearly ahead with 37 percent. In Saxony-Anhalt, according to dimap Infratest, the party currently has just 7 percent – lower than its previous record low at the last state election – while the AfD is at 39 percent.
In Berlin, once a showcase for social democratic politics in big cities, the SPD ranked only fifth in a survey a year before the House of Representatives elections. And in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig is catching up with the AfD, which according to ZDF analysis, is clearly ahead – the red-red government currently does not have a majority.
Broken cohesion: The SPD also lost its local power
The election survey confirms what Forsa described structurally: the binding power of the SPD has shrunk at all levels – at the federal level, in the states, in the municipalities.
The situation is especially drastic when the party once established an urban face: in Dortmund, the “heartland” of social democracy, support for the party shrank by more than 70 percent from the mid-1960s until the 2025 local elections. What was once a red bastion is now a field of political archaeology.
Political scientist: The SPD has lost its essence – a model of gradual elimination is possible
Party researchers have predicted this decline for years. Göttingen political scientist Franz Walter, himself a long-time member of the SPD, was one of the first to speak a decade and a half ago that the SPD was losing not only voters, but also its essence. The diagnosis at the time: the SPD is no longer the people’s party – and will never be the people’s party again.
In his analysis, Walter traces how decline began in the 1970s and continued through reform, political agendas, and environmental dissolution. Today, in 2025, the predictions of the past are coming true, as stated by the famous democratic theorist Fritz W. Scharpf.
The long-serving SPD adviser and director Max Planck speaks of his party in a seemingly resigned manner: He is “somewhat pessimistic” about the future of the SPD – unless there are fundamental changes, the SPD “is probably a model that will be abolished”. Colleagues know this. Some even say so: After the historically poor 2025 federal election results, the SPD mayor of Kiel, Ulf Kampf, said he was very worried: for the SPD, what matters now is “the existence of the party.”
Power struggle between parties: The left blocks Klingbeil
In this situation, looking into the party looks like a picture of a fire in a house that was once magnificent and occupied by many people. However, instead of extinguishing the fire, residents blamed each other for triggering it. For example? In Berlin, the state leadership of the SPD resigned altogether, pragmatists such as Neukölln Mayor Martin Hikel were exposed by left-wing parties and Jusos; A battle for direction is raging in Schleswig-Holstein.
The following applies everywhere: Anyone seen as a pragmatic problem solver is viewed with suspicion or openly opposed by the left. And the center of this struggle is Lars Klingbeil. The man once considered a modern secretary-general is now a party leader without power – formally at the top, but politically squeezed. The picture created by the SPD itself and by observers: The left is “gripping” Klingbeil. At the same time, Bärbel Bas, clearly a left-wing figure, sat at his side as co-leader: Klingbeil had an office, but no legroom.
Strategic deadlock: SPD with no profile, no center of power, no narrative
This is where it becomes clear why the SPD’s demise was not just a matter of poor polls, but rather a strategic impasse. A party with under 15 percent and in some countries down to 5 percent should really show a clear profile, a clear center of power and a recognizable narrative. Instead, the SPD tries to be a classic workers’ party and enlightened urban left, a central government party and channel of protest against neoliberalism, a defender of industrial sites and a supporter of climate transformation.
It’s a union bar and a co-working space – and ultimately it’s no longer credible. The chairman looks less like a reform surgeon and more like an undertaker still preparing the body. In coalition with Chancellor Merz he had to appear reliable and capable of governing, but within his own party they did not follow suit. Overall, this creates a picture that exaggerates Forsa’s sentence at the end of the analysis like an epilogue: If the process of shrinkage continues at all political levels, “the existence of the SPD as a party could be threatened in the future.”
