German far-right AfD fails in bid to win mayoral posts in North-Rhine Westphalian cities

Published on
28/09/2025 – 21:18 GMT+2

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After the second round of local elections in Germany’s most populated Bundesland, taking place in almost 150 districts and cities on Sunday, public broadcaster WDR spoke of a “black wave” – black being the colour of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’ CDU party – as none of the AfD’s leading candidates were able to assert themselves in any of the cities.

And there were some surprising results to prove it. In Dortmund, the CDU’s Alexander Khalouti won the mayoral race, making history in a city with strong working class roots and an unbroken record of Social Democrat mayors since 1946.

SPD state chairwoman Sarah Philipp commented on the Dortmund result to WDR: “That hurts.”

The CDU also conquered Leverkusen and Bielefeld, as well as dominating the more rural constituencies.

SPD celebrates in Cologne

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom for the Social Democrats, either. In Cologne, the only NRW city with over a million inhabitants, the SPD’s Torsten Burmeister won against Berivan Aymaz, Vice-President of the Greens in the state parliament, who had been the bookies’ favourite.

In Oberhausen, Gelsenkirchen, Wuppertal and Mülheim an der Ruhr, the SPD also triumphed over their current national coalition partner CDU.

While Düsseldorf remained “black” and Bochum remained “red”, the Greens had one consolation among their many disappointments: Winning the post from the CDU in Münster, they will be taking the top job in the university town for the first time.

Duisburg, Gelsenkirchen and Hagen were under particular scrutiny as in these cities, AfD candidates had managed to qualify for the second round for the first time in the history of the Bundesland.

On the day, all three AfD candidates lost to their opponents from the CDU or the SPD by large margins.