Introduction Although the success of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is nationwide, the party received twice as many votes in East compared to West Germany in recent elections. While scholars have identified numerous general predictors of populist support, research explaining the East–West gap in AfD support remains inconclusive, largely relies on election data through 2021, and rarely integrates competing explanatory frameworks. Methods Using representative survey data from late 2024 ( N = 1,000), structural equation modeling was applied to make systematic, comparative claims about demand-side, voter-level explanatory factors from multiple theoretical frameworks. Results AfD vote intention was predicted by almost all examined socioeconomic, psychological and cultural variables. Moreover, East Germans reported lower income and stronger relative deprivation, distrust of state institutions, political conspiracy mentality, use of alternative political media, populist/nativist attitudes, national identification, and importance of being German than West Germans. Yet the East–West gap in AfD vote intention was mainly accounted for by political distrust, alternative political media use, and populist/nativist attitudes, whereas socioeconomic and psychological factors did not explain the gap from a cross-sectional perspective. Discussion This calls for further work on causally linking these frameworks to clarify demand-side mechanisms behind voting for populist radical right parties and the German East–West gap thereof.
Siebel et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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