Federal elections were held in Germany on 27 September 2009 to elect the members of the 17th Bundestag.^[1]

Quick Facts All 622 seats in the Bundestag, including 24 overhang seats 312 seats needed for a majority, Registered ...

2009 German federal election

← 2005 27 September 2009 (2009-09-27) 2013 →
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All 622 seats in the Bundestag, including 24 overhang seats 312 seats needed for a majority
Registered	62,168,489 0.5%
Turnout	44,005,575 (70.8%) 6.9pp
First party Second party Third party   Candidate Angela Merkel Frank-Walter Steinmeier Guido Westerwelle Party CDU/CSU SPD FDP Last election 35.2%, 226 seats 34.2%, 222 seats 9.8%, 61 seats Seats won 239 146 93 Seat change 13 76 32 Popular vote 14,658,515 9,990,488 6,316,080 Percentage 33.8% 23.0% 14.6% Swing 1.4pp 11.2pp 4.8pp   Fourth party Fifth party   Candidate Gregor Gysi & Oskar Lafontaine Jürgen Trittin & Renate Künast Party Left Greens Last election 8.7%, 54 seats 8.1%, 51 seats Seats won 76 68 Seat change 22 17 Popular vote 5,155,933 4,643,272 Percentage 11.9% 10.7% Swing 3.2pp 2.6pp
The left side shows constituency winners of the election by their party colours. The right side shows party list winners of the election for the additional members by their party colours.
Government before election First Merkel cabinet CDU/CSU–SPD Government after election Second Merkel cabinet CDU/CSU–FDP

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The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) won the election, and the three parties formed a new centre-right government with Angela Merkel as chancellor. While CDU/CSU's share of votes decreased slightly, it was more than compensated by the gains of their "desired coalition partner", the liberal FDP, that won the strongest result in its history.

CDU and CSU's former partner in the "Grand coalition", the Social Democratic Party (SPD) led by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, conceded defeat^[2] after dropping by more than 11 percentage points, receiving its hitherto worst result since the end of the Second World War (only undercut in 2017).

At 69.8 percent, the voter turnout was the lowest in a German federal election since 1949.

Since the 2005 election, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) had governed in a grand coalition with the SPD. However, it was her stated goal to win a majority for CDU/CSU and FDP (the CDU/CSU's traditional coalition partner) in 2009.

Foreign minister and Vice-Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) was formally nominated as his party's chancellor-candidate at a convention on 18 October 2008.^[3] He aimed to form a government in which the SPD was the strongest party, but which also excluded the left-socialist party The Left.^[4]

The election campaign was considered exceptionally boring,^[5] which may be attributable to a perceived lack of charisma on the part of the leaders of the CDU and SPD.^[6] Another reason pointed to for the sedate campaign is that the CDU and SPD both defended the record of their grand coalition, and facing the possibility of having to continue the grand coalition in a friendly manner.^[7] Merkel was content with the low-key campaign style, which was largely seen as benefiting her party because of her high approval ratings.^[8]

CDU candidate Vera Lengsfeld released a campaign poster featuring herself and Merkel in a way that emphasised their cleavage.^[9] The poster bore the slogan "We have more to offer" (German: "Wir haben mehr zu bieten").^[10]

On 23 September 2009, four days before the federal elections, German police raided the Berlin headquarters of the National Democratic Party of Germany NPD to investigate claims that letters sent from the NPD to politicians from immigrant backgrounds incited racial hatred. The NPD leader in Berlin defended the letters saying that "As part of a democracy, we're entitled to say if something doesn't suit us in this country."^{[11][12][13][14]}

The federal election was the final and most important election in what is called a Superwahljahr (super election year) in Germany. In addition to the election of a new Bundestag, also scheduled for 2009 were the election to the European Parliament on 7 June, seven local elections on the same day, five state elections and an additional local election in August and September and the election of the president of Germany by the Federal Assembly on 23 May.

The CDU/CSU and FDP, with an average vote share of around 50% in pre-election polling during the weeks before the election, were clearly ahead of the other traditional coalition partners in Germany, SPD and the Greens.^[15]

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU), and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) were able to form a centre-right government, with Angela Merkel of the CDU continuing as the chancellor and the leader of the FDP, Guido Westerwelle, becoming foreign minister and vice-chancellor.^[19]

The CDU/CSU received a slightly lower proportion than in the previous election, with the Bavarian CSU receiving its lowest vote share in decades.^[20] Overall, the CDU/CSU had their worst vote share in 60 years.^[21] In contrast, their preferred coalition partner, the liberal FDP, gained nearly 5% points to give it 14.6% of the vote, the best result of its history. The big loser of the election was the SPD, which received its worst result ever in a federal election, receiving only 23% of the total party vote and suffering the biggest percentage loss of any party in German federal election history in 60 years. The two other parties represented in the Bundestag, the Left and the Greens, both made large gains and received the highest vote share of their respective histories. For the first time, The Left won constituency seats outside its traditional stronghold of East Berlin. As a result of the losses by the SPD and the gains by the FDP, the alliance of the CDU/CSU and FDP received an outright majority of seats, ensuring that Angela Merkel would continue as chancellor.

Had the CDU/CSU and FDP failed to win a majority of seats, possible alternative coalitions may have included a continuation of the grand coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD. A traffic light coalition (SPD–FDP–Greens) was specifically ruled out by FDP leader Guido Westerwelle.^[22]

Results by state

Second Vote ("Zweitstimme", or votes for party list)

More information State results in %, CDU/CSU ...

State[23] results in %	CDU/CSU	SPD	FDP	LINKE	GRÜNE	all others
Baden-Württemberg	34.5	19.3	18.8	7.2	13.9	6.3
Bavaria	42.6	16.8	14.7	6.5	10.8	8.6
Berlin	22.8	20.2	11.5	20.2	17.4	7.9
Brandenburg	23.6	25.1	9.3	28.5	6.1	7.4
Bremen	23.9	30.3	10.6	14.2	15.4	5.6
Hamburg	27.9	27.4	13.2	11.2	15.6	4.7
Hesse	32.2	25.6	16.6	8.5	12.0	5.1
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern	33.2	16.6	9.8	29.0	5.5	5.9
Lower Saxony	33.2	29.3	13.3	8.6	10.7	4.9
North Rhine-Westphalia	33.1	28.5	14.9	8.4	10.1	5.0
Rhineland-Palatinate	35.0	23.8	16.6	9.4	9.7	5.5
Saarland	30.7	24.7	11.9	21.2	6.8	4.7
Saxony	35.6	14.6	13.3	24.5	6.7	5.3
Saxony-Anhalt	30.1	16.9	10.3	32.4	5.1	5.2
Schleswig-Holstein	32.2	26.8	16.3	7.9	12.7	4.1
Thuringia	31.2	17.6	9.8	28.8	6.0	6.6

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Constituency seats

More information State, Total seats ...

State	Total seats	Seats won
		CDU	SPD	CSU	Linke	Grüne
Baden-Württemberg	38	37	1
Bavaria	45			45
Berlin	12	5	2		4	1
Brandenburg	10	1	5		4
Bremen	2		2
Hamburg	6	3	3
Hesse	21	15	6
Lower Saxony	30	16	14
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern	7	6			1
North Rhine-Westphalia	64	37	27
Rhineland-Palatinate	15	13	2
Saarland	4	4
Saxony	16	16
Saxony-Anhalt	9	4			5
Schleswig-Holstein	11	9	2
Thuringia	9	7			2
Total	299	173	64	45	16	1

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List seats

More information State, Total seats ...

State	Total seats	Seats won
		FDP	SPD	Grüne	Linke	CDU
Baden-Württemberg	46	15	14	11	6
Bavaria	46	14	16	10	6
Berlin	11	3	3	3	1	1
Brandenburg	9	2		1	2	4
Bremen	4	1		1	1	1
Hamburg	7	2	1	2	1	1
Hesse	24	8	6	6	4
Lower Saxony	32	9	5	7	6	5
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern	7	1	2	1	3
North Rhine-Westphalia	65	20	12	14	11	8
Rhineland-Palatinate	17	5	6	3	3
Saarland	6	1	2	1	2
Saxony	19	4	5	2	8
Saxony-Anhalt	8	2	3	1	1	1
Schleswig-Holstein	13	4	4	3	2
Thuringia	9	2	3	1	3
Total	323	93	82	67	60	21

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• Faas, Thorsten (2010). "The German Federal Election of 2009: Sprouting Coalitions, Drooping Social Democrats". West European Politics. 33 (4): 894–903. doi:10.1080/01402381003794670. S2CID 154171892.
• Langenbacher, Eric, ed. (2011). Between Left and Right: The 2009 Bundestag Elections and the Transformation of the German Party System. New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-0-85745-222-1. Scholarly studies.
• Reher, Stefanie. "The effect of congruence in policy priorities on electoral participation." Electoral Studies 36 (2014): 158–172. based on 2009 polls; online