Rhineland-Palatinate state election 2026
This is how Rhineland-Palatinate voted
Last up to date: March 22, 2026, 8:23 p.m
Rhineland-Palatinate elects a brand new state parliament. Which coalitions are potential? Who will win which constituency? Which events are significantly sturdy in your area? An overview.
The voting age in Rhineland-Palatinate stays 18, not like the election in Baden-Württemberg two weeks in the past. Several makes an attempt by the Mainz visitors mild authorities to decrease the voting age to 16, as within the southwest, failed as a result of the required two-thirds majority was not achieved. The CDU and AfD are towards it.
Every voter in Rhineland-Palatinate has two votes. The first vote decides on the direct candidates, the second vote on the events. Twelve events are up for election and 101 representatives are elected. There are overhang mandates if a celebration receives extra direct mandates than it’s entitled to based mostly on the second vote end result. Other events then obtain compensatory mandates.
Around 2.95 million residents in Rhineland-Palatinate are known as to vote. The state is basically conservative, regardless that the SPD has dominated Mainz for many years.
Voter turnout in state elections is historically decrease than in federal elections. In Rhineland-Palatinate, the best voter turnout up to now was 90 % in 1983. Voter turnout reached its lowest degree in 2006 at 58 %. In the final state election in 2021, voter turnout was 64 %. For comparability: virtually 83 % of German residents who had been eligible to vote took half in final 12 months’s federal election.
The structurally conservative Rhineland-Palatinate has lengthy been a stronghold of the CDU. The celebration supplied well-known prime ministers comparable to Helmut Kohl and Bernhard Vogel. In a number of state elections within the Nineteen Seventies, the Christian Democrats received absolute majorities and had been in a position to govern alone for a number of legislative intervals.
The CDU’s reign in Mainz got here to an finish with the time period of Prime Minister Carl-Ludwig Wagner in 1991. The former mayor of Trier was unable to prevail within the vote towards the SPD’s high candidate Rudolf Scharping. At that point, the SPD obtained virtually 45 %, the CDU solely rather less than 39 %.
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/wahl-in-rheinland-pfalz/landtagswahl-rlp-2026-aktuelle-hochrechnungen-und-alle-ergebnisse-in-rheinland-pfalz-200641718.html