Each voter gets two votes: One is cast for their local representative, and the other for a party. In most cases, candidates who win their district get a seat. But the overall share of seats that parties gain in parliament is determined by the percentage of second votes they win, so this is the number most widely reported on election night. The parties fill up the seats they win through second votes based on regional candidate lists.
On election night, the first exit poll is expected at 6 p.m., with initial results coming half an hour later. These tend to give a good idea of the winners and losers, while the final results and the exact distribution of parliamentary seats are usually determined overnight.
What do the polls say?
Merz’s conservative alliance — which consists of his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) — is set to win by a solid margin, and is currently polling at 30 percent.
The AfD is expected to finish second with 22 percent, which would be the party’s best score in a national vote and more than double its result in the 2021 election.
The Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens — both seen as possible junior coalition partners to the conservatives — are polling in third and fourth place on 17 percent and 13 percent respectively.
The liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), The Left, and the leftist-populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), meanwhile, are all struggling to make it into parliament while polling around the 5 percent threshold for representation.