Given that a head-to-head race in constituency 196 was expected for a long time, the result on Sunday evening is surprisingly clear: Frank Ullrich, the former GDR biathlon Olympic champion and SPD candidate, wins the direct mandate in southern Thuringia by a large margin against the former President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen, who stood for the CDU.
Shortly after 8.30 p.m. Maaßen, who wanted to celebrate in a hotel in Zella-Mehlis, went public.
"It's a heavy defeat," said Maaßen and congratulated Ullrich.
According to participants, he did not allow inquiries, but immediately withdrew with his loyal followers.
Stefan Locke
Correspondent for Saxony and Thuringia based in Dresden.
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Ullrich's clear lead was evident from the start of the count.
In the end, Ullrich was almost 34 percent, more than twelve percentage points ahead of Maaßen, who almost ended up in third place.
In the end, Maassen was only a few tenths ahead of the AfD candidate, Jürgen Treutler.
As recently as last week, there was speculation as to whether the AfD would call for the election of Maassen with a first-vote campaign, but apart from the Suhl district association, the party had not done so.
Election campaign with classic AfD issues
Ullrich, in turn, could count on a few votes from voters for the Greens who had called for his election. Green candidate Stephanie Erben, with a good two percent, won not much less than in the federal election four years ago. The leftist candidate, Sandro Witt, who vehemently opposed a loan campaign for Ullrich, achieved almost nine percent, about half as much as his predecessor in 2017.
With Maassen's clear defeat, it is clear that the Union's strategy to win back AfD voters with candidates who are far on the right-wing fringes of the party has failed. During the election campaign, Maaßen tried to win votes with classic AfD issues such as warnings of alleged mass immigration of refugees, rising crime and a collapsing state. "Those who vote red are opting for mass immigration, paternalism and tax increases!" Was what was written on his large-format posters, on which the CDU logo, if it still existed, was barely recognizable.
The election result repeats an effect that was already observed in the state elections in Saxony two years ago. Of the four CDU candidates who had drawn on Maassen's support in the election campaign, three lost their direct mandate - to the AfD. In Thuringia, too, it is now evident that people do not trust a candidate who appears in Union garb like an AfD applicant, and if in doubt they prefer to choose the original. The effect is all the more remarkable when you consider that a previously completely unknown, retired engineer entered the race for the AfD and got a good 34,000 votes (around 21 percent) from scratch.
There are clear differences in constituency 196 between the first and second vote results.
While Frank Ullrich may have benefited from his local fame and he was able to win the constituency for the SPD directly, the AfD has the lead in the second vote with 26.5 percent.
The SPD took second place with a good 25 percent, the CDU with just 16 percent no longer played a role in the constituency that it had clearly won directly in the last two federal elections.