Dominik Krause has been elected Munich's first openly gay Lord Mayor, ending over 70 years of SPD rule. Full results, biography and what comes next.

Green Party candidate wins 22 March run-off with 56.4% of the vote, ending decades of SPD dominance in Bavaria's capital

The Election Result

On Sunday, 22 March 2026, Green Party candidate Dominik Krause won the run-off mayoral election in Munich, defeating incumbent Dieter Reiter of the SPD. Krause secured 56.4% of the vote against Reiter's 43.6%, with turnout standing at 44.5% of eligible voters, according to the City of Munich's official results.

The result came after a first round on 8 March in which no candidate crossed the 50% threshold required for an outright win. In that first round, Reiter led with 35.6% ahead of Krause on 29.5%, with CSU candidate Clemens Baumgärtner in third. His elimination set up the two-way run off two weeks later.

With this result, Krause has ended the SPD's hold on Munich's city leadership a dominance that, with one brief interruption from 1978 to 1984 when the CSU held the post, had lasted since 1948. The shift marks one of the most significant political changes in the city's postwar history.

Who Is Dominik Krause?

Krause was born in Munich on 3 August 1990 and grew up in the city's Obermenzing district. After completing his Abitur in 2009, he undertook his civil service placement at an inclusive Montessori school in Großhadern before studying physics at the Technical University of Munich, where he graduated with an MSc in Applied and Engineering Physics.

He joined Munich's city council in 2014 at the age of 23, serving alongside Reiter for the entirety of the outgoing mayor's tenure. He most recently held the role of Second Mayor the city's deputy head and stepped in to manage Munich's day-to-day administration during a period when Reiter was absent for medical reasons, a stretch that gave him practical executive experience ahead of the campaign.

Krause is Munich's first openly gay Lord Mayor and the first from the Green Party to hold the post.

The Context: What Shaped the Race

Several factors defined the final weeks of the campaign on both sides.

Reiter's bid for a third term was complicated by two damaging revelations in the run-up to polling day. It emerged that he had been receiving EUR20,000 annually for voluntary work on FC Bayern Munich's administrative advisory board payments he had not disclosed publicly. Separately, he faced widespread criticism after using a racial slur in the city council chamber, an incident that drew condemnation from across the political spectrum and dominated coverage in the campaign's final stretch.

Krause, meanwhile, campaigned on a platform built around three central issues: housing, public transport, and climate. On housing Munich's most persistent and politically charged challenge he proposed converting vacant commercial and office space into residential use and did not rule out compulsory purchase powers in exceptional cases to unlock stalled development sites. On transport, he backed a continued shift toward public transit and electric mobility. On climate, he set carbon neutrality as a long-term city ambition, in line with targets set under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change framework that many European cities have adopted as a benchmark.

Election Night

When the results came in, Krause celebrated at the Muffathalle with his fiancé Sebastian Müller, whom he thanked publicly as "the love of my life, without whom all of this would not have been possible." The two have been together since meeting as teenagers in 2007. Following the result, Krause wrote on Instagram: "Munich, you are simply incredible."

What Happens Next

On the question of governing, Krause indicated he would first seek to continue working with the existing council grouping of Greens, SPD, Volt and Rosa Liste a coalition that together holds a majority in Munich's city council. Those negotiations will define the pace and scope of his first term. Krause is expected to formally take office in the coming weeks, at which point he will become Munich's youngest Lord Mayor in the modern era, as well as its first from the Green Party.