Is the SPD heading for political extinction?

In modern German elections, parties only need a small slice of popular approval to win. That strange arithmetic could yet save the SPD in Rhineland-Palatinate.

Dear Reader,

Superwahljahr 2026 — super election year 2026 — has begun, and things have not started well for the Social Democrats, Germany’s oldest party and the political home of chancellors such as Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and (ahem) Gerhard Schröder.

In Baden-Württemberg on Sunday, the Social Democrats won just 5.5 percent of the vote, putting them perilously close to dropping out of parliament altogether by missing the 5 percent threshold required to gain seats in the state legislature.

With four more state elections to go this year (out of a total of 16), the result has led to chatter about the SPD entering a death spiral into political obscurity.

Comparisons have been made with the Free Democrats, Germany’s traditional liberal party, which — also a junior partner in a quarrelling centrist coalition — suffered a series of disastrous results in state elections that ultimately sca…